Rising to the Challenge
by Gauss
Summary: Sequel to Dee's Story (Story ID: 1422652). Dee rises to the challenge of Slayer in San Diego Completed, March 29, '04
1. Author's Note

**A Quick Note from the Author:**

This story is a sequel to _Dee's Story (Story ID: 1422652), and if you're interested in reading this story, you should probably read __Dee before this one, since there are very few cannon characters which appear in this story.  Oz is the only one who plays any central role, and a few others are given sort of a token mention, but that's basically it._

The rest of the characters are my creations and, as such, will be completely unfamiliar to those of you who haven't read _Dee's Story._

At any rate, hope you like it.

Thanks for reading.


	2. What Are You?

Disclaimer:  Don't own the universe, but most of the characters (Dee, Anne, Anders and April) are my own creation.  The universe they're running around in is exclusively the creation of Mr. Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.  Oz also belongs to Mr. Whedon, and a select few other characters who are given little more than a passing mention, but the rest are mine.

Chapter 1

"I'm sorry, Dee, you do _not make enough to drive a $35,000 car."  April looked rather incredulously at the tiny roadster as Dee effortlessly hefted her heavy bag into her trunk._

Dee shook her head, "nope, I don't.  This is a company car."  She opened the driver side door and gestured for her younger sister to get in.

"What company, and do they have a position open?"  Anne was starting her first year at UCSD in engineering.

Dee smiled, "I think they'll probably want you to have a degree first."  She shrugged, "They sent me this car to replace the one I totaled on the bridge."

"So how's work been going?"

"Well, the woman who used to have my job has made my life a living hell, but apart from that, I've got no complaints."  In the few months since Dee had beaten Anne down on the bridge, she had been stepping up the pressure.  Seldom involving herself, she had been throwing a variety of beasties at the new Slayer.  As far as Dee could tell, she was safe at home, but she couldn't figure out why, exactly.  Anne clearly knew where she lived.  On a number of occasions, she'd been attacked, quite literally, on her own doorstep.

Dee had since moved to a condo in La Jolla, but the attacks hadn't stopped, or even slowed for that matter.  Oz's lawyer friend in LA had helped her around some of the bigger financial hurdles, such as the fact that she would die of old age long before she could pay off the mortgage to the condominium she now lived in.  When April had been accepted to UCSD, Dee had offered to have her live with her, provided her mother was willing to pay a portion of her mortgage, which still worked out to far less than it would cost April to rent an apartment.  Dee had started communicating with her mother again, but that didn't mean that she was willing to do her any favors.

Dee just hoped that April wouldn't notice when her older sister came home bloody and bruised.

Dee pressed the ignition button, and smiled as the car's engine growled hungrily.  The Honda S2000 wasn't exactly the most practical vehicle on the road, but it was probably among the more fun.  It handled like it could read her mind (which, judging by what she was able to get Oz to tell her about where the car had come from, was not necessarily an outlandish suggestion).

She coasted onto I-5 and turned the car loose as she accelerated to highway speeds.  Her sister had caught a fairly late shuttle in from LA, and the highway was relatively unpopulated tonight.  The sun had only been down for about twenty minutes.  San Diego had notoriously late sunsets, which was why it always struck Dee as somewhat odd that there would be so much Vampire activity.  It seemed to her that they would migrate to somewhat darker climes.

Oz's old girlfriend lived in Calgary, Alberta now with her new girlfriend (Dee had wisely decided not to ask Oz about the history behind _that one).  Dee had spent a winter there with her father a long time ago.  She remembered how the sun practically never rose._

That made a lot more sense to be a hotspot (which considering the average temperature in Calgary, was a somewhat ironic term) of demonic activity.

Which, to be fair, it was.  But why on earth would someone with an aversion to tanning come to San Diego?

"Hello?  Earth to Dee?"

Dee shook herself out of her reverie and realized that April had been talking for five minutes, straight.

"Sorry, Apes.  I let my mind drift.  What were you saying?"

"I was just saying that I liked the new hairstyle.  It works on you."

Dee subconsciously reached back and ran her fingers along the smooth blackwood chopsticks she had holding her raven-colored hair in place, "Thanks.  I kinda like it too."  Her hair was now the shortest it had been in years.  She used to keep it long, way down to the middle of her back.  Now, unwilling to give any big nasties a handle to hold her by, she'd had it chopped off just above her shoulders.  It also gave her a convenient place to keep two rather deadly weapons, at least for any Vampires out there.  Her father had liked to say that the best place to hide a letter is on the living room table.  The best place to conceal a weapon is in plain sight.

She was somewhat surprised to see a minivan pull even with her.  She was traveling at over eighty miles per hour.

She felt, rather than heard or saw, the door of the minivan slide open, and a short, nasty looking submachine gun push its way out through the space.

"Apes, _get DOWN!"_

Dee brutally grabbed April's head, and drove it as hard as she could into her little sister's lap, while simultaneously slamming on the brakes.

The car dropped from over eighty miles per hour to less than forty in an eye blink.  The minivan's driver, unprepared for the sudden maneuver, overshot the tiny roadster as the gunman's finger squeezed the trigger.  The gun (Dee now identified it as an HK-MP5SD3) launched a line of projectiles into the road in front of her car.  Its integrated silencer, which made it a favorite among counterterrorist groups everywhere, kept the sound down to a particularly forceful whisper.

April was whimpering in the seat next to her.

"Apes, listen to me, _listen."_

"What?"  April was breathing fast.  She was clearly terrified.

Who could blame her?

"Under your seat, you'll find a small compartment.  Gimme the crossbow in it."

April instantly produced it.  Dee made a silent note to thank Fred for having the foresight to install something like that.  She was now one lane over, and her front bumper was even with the van's rear.  If the gunman wanted another shot, he was going to have to lean out of the van.

He did.  His vampiric eyes looking over the gunsights at Dee with a fury that nearly matched her own.

Dee shifted the pistol-sized crossbow into her left hand, and mentally prayed that she wouldn't have to shift any time soon.  The tiny hand crossbow she held didn't have a lot of range, but she was so close to the gunman that it didn't really matter.

For a split second, the six inches around his heart were unprotected, and Dee took the shot.  The vampire crumbled, the submachine gun falling harmlessly to the street, unfired.  She handed the crossbow back to her sister, "Reload."

Her sister struggled with the crossbow.  Fortunately, it was fairly straight forward, and she managed to do it without stapling her foot to the car's floor.

"W-what's going on?"  April's voice was shaking now, as she handed the now-loaded crossbow to her sister.

"Apes, I promise that I'll explain everything, just trust me now."

Dee accelerated, and prepared to fire a shot into the still-opened side door to catch anyone who might still be inside.

One of the vampires inside, however, beat her to it, and dove across the five feet between the minivan and the slayer's car, catching Dee by surprise.  Her wrist hit the door frame hard.  Not hard enough to injure, but hard enough to jar the crossbow from her grip.  He landed practically in Dee's lap, his fangs bared, preparing to bite into the slayer's exposed neck.

"Apes, take the wheel."  Dee let go of the steering wheel, after pushing it slightly to the right to prevent the unguided car from sideswiping the minivan, killing them both.

April, to her credit, grabbed the wheel, holding the car steady long enough for Dee to smoothly slip one of the chopsticks out of her hair and drive it into the center of the Vampire's chest, raining ash and dust down on the two sisters.

"April, a knife, please."  Dee's voice was cold, hard.  April had never heard quite that tone in her voice before, even when she was talking to her mother.

April looked down at the compartment under her seat.  "Which one?"  There were about six different knives down there.

"Pick one."

April handed her sister a particularly nasty-looking _kris_.  Its thin wavy blade, almost nine inches long, spoke to her.

"That'll do."

Dee flipped the Indonesian knife over in her hand, holding it by the blade, and threw it as hard as she could at the van's front right tire.  The thin blade slid smoothly into the tire, flattening it in moments.

At forty miles an hour, a blowout like that would have been minor.  At eighty, it would have been life threatening, had anybody in the van actually been alive.

Dee slammed on the brakes again, as the van swerved wildly to the right.  Its forward momentum forced the van to flip over and over before it finally came to a rest, upside-down, about two hundred feet away.  She brought her sports car smoothly to a stop.

"Apes, stay in the car."  Dee stepped out and made her way to the trunk.  April was freaking out, _welcome to __San Diego__, li'l sis, Dee thought to herself._

Dee pulled April's bag out of the trunk and slid the false bottom of the trunk away.  She pulled out her personal favorite weapons, a pair of _Wakizashi_.  One of the shorter oriental blades which occupied the uncomfortable space between sword and dagger.

Two vampires were already getting out of the van.  They looked to be injured, but mostly intact.  There had been four of 'em.  They were hunting her in larger numbers now.  In the earliest of her slayer days, she'd have maybe one or two coming after her.

They attacked simultaneously, and Dee sidestepped their blows, letting loose a vicious sidekick at the driver's abdomen.  It didn't knock the wind out of him.  He had no wind to be knocked.  But it did drive him backwards long enough for her to concentrate her efforts on the other one.

He didn't allow her time to rest, and threw a punch at the slayer's head.  She spun out of the way, sweeping the _Wakizashi_ in her right hand down at the vampire's arm, surgically severing it just above the elbow, she then sprung back at the vampire, sweeping the sword in her left hand across the vampire's neck, sending it flying a good distance before it crumbled to dust in mid-air.

She turned to the driver.

"Next."  She whispered at it.

The vampire threw a brutal sidekick, which Dee sidestepped and responded with a brutal snap-kick to his groin.

In inhuman pain, the vampire fell to his knees, tears of pain and humiliation welling up in his dead eyes, just before a smooth stroke of the sword severed his head from his body.

Dee walked back to her car, April had not moved since the car had come to a stop, her makeup was streaked by the tears still running down her cheeks.  In the dim streetlamps, she looked as white as the vampires she'd just watched her sister massacre.

"April?  Apes, are you okay?"  She quickly looked over her younger sister for any injuries.  She ran her fingers along her sister's scalp, looking for any cuts or bruises under her hair.

She heard the unmistakable whistle of a blade sweeping through the air, and felt cold metal pressed against her carotid artery.

April's voice trembled, but was hard and brutal, "what _are you?"_


	3. Not Safe Anywhere

Disclaimer:  Universe is not mine, nor is Oz.  I'm just allowing a few of my own characters to run around in it for a while.

With apologies again for taking so long to update.  I ran into the great shitstorm of 2003 at work this week.

Chapter 2:

_This will have to be the dumbest way a Slayer has ever died_, Dee thought to herself as she felt her sister pressing the blade a little harder against her neck.  She could feel a single drop of blood rolling down her neck from the point of the knife.

"April.  Apes, it's me."  Dee was very careful not to make any sudden movements.  She was pretty sure her sister wasn't exactly in the most rational state of mind.

"You, you just killed four people.  Dee could never do something like that."  April's tear-streaked face hardened.

_You'd be surprised at what I could do,_ Dee thought to herself.  "Apes, I didn't kill them."

"I saw you.  You shot one, stabbed another and beheaded two more.  Who— _what_ are you?"  No, April definitely wasn't in the most rational state of mind.  Not that Dee could really hold that against her.  Dee looked again, judging the distance between her sister and herself.   She was close enough that she could probably knock her out with a single punch, but she wasn't entirely certain she could do it before April thrust that knife home.

Not to mention that it wouldn't go very far towards building trust between them.

"Apes, they were already dead."  The fact that this was one of the biggest hurdles that Dee had had to get over during her first months as a slayer was not lost on her.  It had taken her a long time to accept that she wasn't actually killing them, that they were already dead.

"What?"

"How many living people do you know who crumble into dust when you stab or behead them?"

"I don't know, I've never killed anybody."  The point of the knife pressed a little harder against Dee's neck.

"Neither have…"  Dee caught herself.  April didn't deserve a lie.  "I didn't kill them," she repeated, lamely; not knowing what else to say.

"Don't _lie_ to me!"  April twisted the knife against her neck.  Dee winced against the sharp pain as it dug in to the soft skin of her throat.  A little flick of April's wrist, and Dee would be bleeding to death.  She would slit the carotid artery wide open, and Dee would bleed out in minutes.

_I wonder if there are any other slayers who were done in by their own sisters_, Dee couldn't help pondering, through the sharp pain.

"Apes, do you really want to hurt me?"  Dee forced her voice to be gentle.

"The thought had crossed my mind."

Dee winced, that sounded _way too familiar._

_God, I wish Oz were here._  Oz had a way of calming her down whenever she was losing control.  April, it would seem, had a lot of the same genetics she had.  But Dee didn't have Oz's gift of stoicism.

Silently, she prayed that Anders had been right about slayer super-speed, and tensed herself for a single strike.

In a single motion, she snapped her head backwards a few inches, out of contact with the knife, while she simultaneously slapped it aside with the back of her left hand.  She gritted her teeth against the pain as the razor sharp edge of the knife sliced deeply into her, very nearly scoring the bone of her hand.

She hoped that Anders was right about slayer healing too.  The knife had just sliced most of the ligaments in the back of her left hand, not to mention a few major veins at the same time.

Before April had a chance to react, Dee drove her right fist forward, catching her baby sister under the right eye, snapping her head backwards.  Rattling her brain just enough to knock her out, and hoping that she hadn't applied too much force.  She didn't much know her strength these days.

Dee did a quick check of April's face before she got into the car.  It didn't look like she was hurt.  Her pride maybe, and she would probably have a pretty ugly-looking bruise in the morning.  Hopefully her unconscious state would give her a chance to cool off a bit.

She got back behind the steering wheel of her car.  The bleeding in her right hand and her throat had already stopped.  Perhaps there _was something to this slayer quick-healing thing._

Now, though, she needed to pay Oz a visit.

Anne quietly flipped off the video camera as she watched the slayer drive away.  From her perch high above the highway, she had seen everything, and had got it on tape.  She'd figured that about here would be where the slayer would get the van to stop.  Dee was getting good.  Very good.

Osiris had been less than thrilled when he'd found out that she'd tried to kill off San Diego's newest slayer.  He'd been even less pleased about the fact that she'd failed to do so.  It was something of a sore point that his ex-slayer vampire had had her ass kicked by a wet-behind-the-ears _human._

The fact that the human in question happened to be a slayer wasn't lost on him, he just didn't care.

She could still feel the inhuman burning pain from his punishment.  He'd had her stripped, hung upside down, and dunked over and over again in a vat of holy water.  Never long enough to kill her, but long enough to take her to the very edge of death.  The burns that had covered her whole body had only just faded to her skin's normal pale, cold luster.

Osiris was a decent guy to work with, most of the time, but he didn't suffer fools lightly.  Anne had to admit that she'd been foolish.

She wouldn't be making the same mistake twice.

The frantic knocking at his front door snapped Oz away from the book he was reading.

He stood up, and opened the door.

"Hi," he paused when he saw that she had an unconscious young woman in her arms, "Dee."

"Oz, meet April," she nodded at the unconscious woman, "April, Oz."

"Your sister?"

Dee nodded.

"What happened?"  He asked,

"She fell."

"On _what?_"

"My fist."

"I've heard of sibling rivalry, but…"

"Oz, not now, okay?"  Dee sounded marginally annoyed.

Oz ushered her inside and allowed her to place her sister's limp body on the couch.

"What happened?"

"She was about to make me get a little too friendly with one of my own knives."

"Oh."  Oz nodded.

They were both silent for a long time.

"She saw…?"  Oz left the question unfinished.

Dee nodded, "How did Anne know when April's flight was coming in?"

Oz shrugged, "She knows practically as much about you as I do.  She seemed rather interested in your file just before she… left."

Dee shuddered.  You could fit an awful lot of information in a file as thick as Oz had on her; and that didn't count the files he had on the computer that she wasn't supposed to know about.  If she could access those, Anne could too.  You could find just about anything about someone these days, if you knew who to ask.

"So, you want to tell me what really happened here?"

Dee shrugged, "she saw me kill four vamps, she freaked.  I had to beat her into unconsciousness to keep her from knifing me."

"And you're sure it was Anne?"

"Sure seemed like her.  She hasn't shown her face lately, but it sure seemed like the kind of homework she would assign to a few minions."

Oz nodded, sadly.  What on earth had happened to Anne?  It was one thing to try to go after the slayer, but to risk catching an 18-year-old in the crossfire?  That was sloppy, by Anne's standards.

He shook the though out of his head.  This wasn't the Anne he had known.

"You know April's not safe here."  Dee's voice interrupted his thoughts.

Oz shook his head, "no, she's not safe anywhere, not anymore."

The color drained from Dee's face as the reality of the situation sunk in.  There was a mad vampire out there with the strength and training of a slayer, who had a burning urge to see her dead, and who knew how to find her younger sister.  "Shit," she whispered.  The single expletive seemed to summarize the situation nicely.

"But she's saf_est_ whenever she's within three feet of you."

Dee nodded.  Oz was right, and she knew it.

As if on cue, April moaned quietly, and snapped her eyes open.

"Rise and shine."  Oz told her, his voice deadpan.

April sharply drew in a breath and was about to scream.  Oz reacted (surprisingly enough) before Dee did.  He slapped a hand over April's mouth.

"Shhh."  He whispered, soothingly, to her, "It's okay, you're safe here."

April winced as his hand pressed against her newly-bruised left cheek, but she seemed to calm down a little.  Oz had a way of doing that.

"I'm Oz.  I understand that you're April."  He smiled, "and I understand you've already met Dee."

April pointed, nervously at Dee, "She killed…"

Oz held up a hand, cutting her off, "I know what you think you saw, but I'm going to ask you: if she killed four people in cold blood, is it that inconceivable that she could have killed you while you were unconscious?"

April seemed to relax a little more, as Oz's logic seemed to make sense.

She lay calmly, as Oz told her everything.


	4. One thing to lose

Disclaimer:  The universe is still not mine, but belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.  I made the offer a while back to wash Mr. Whedon's car if he'd give me the rights to 'em, but he still hasn't got back to me.

Chapter 3:

All things considered, April took the news; namely that she was now caught in the middle of a war that had been waged for millennia; rather well.

"I think I'm gonna throw up."  She said, her voice weak, and her face pale.

"Not on the couch."  Oz moved forward to help her sit up.

"How did all this happen?  How come nobody knows?  How is it that nobody's ever noticed this before?"  She asked.

"Human nature.  We tend to rationalize away anything we can't explain."  Oz explained simply.

"So you're telling me that the monsters under my bed were real when I was a child?"

"Monster."

"What?"

"Monster, singular.  You only had one living under your bed."

April gaped.

"Although 'monster' is used somewhat loosely.  He was an Aztec Quorel demon.  Small, furry critters that live of human body heat.  You also had an ancient Mayan Xenomorph living in your closet.  Shapeshifter.  They usually disguise themselves as a dirty old sock."  Oz continued.

April looked at him quizzically.  It was completely impossible to tell whether he was joking or not.  With everything she'd seen in the last little while, she wasn't exactly willing to dismiss _anything as impossible.  And it _did_ explain why she always seemed to have a single dirty sock in the back of her closet that didn't go with anything else she wore._

Dee, apparently, couldn't tell whether Oz was joking either, 'cause she wasn't smirking or anything.  Dee had never been able to pull off a good prank; her own facial expressions always gave her away.  She also sucked at poker.

"So, what happens now?"  April asked.

"You stay with me."  Dee, who was silent as Oz radically changed her baby sister's view of the world, and had remained silent until now finally spoke up, "Anne isn't going to leave you alone, and you're safest when you're with me."

"What about mom?"  April asked.

Dee felt a cold fist twist in her stomach.  She hadn't even considered her mother.

Oz cut in, "Angel's on it.  But I don't think Anne'll go after her."

"Why not?  She's shown that she'll go after me.  Why wouldn't she try to get to Dee through mom?"

"She'll try to get to me through people I actually _like."_

April almost shivered at the cold tone in Dee's voice.  It wasn't completely unexpected.  Dee had made no secret that she and her mother, while they were communicating (if one used the term loosely), didn't much care for each other.

Nevertheless, the tone in Dee's voice made April feel as though someone had rested an ice cube against the base of her neck, right against her spine.

"Plus, there's no reason Anne would go to L.A. when she has a bargaining chip right here."  Oz added.

"This," What had Oz called him again? "Angel, you trust him?"  April asked.

"Completely."

April looked at Dee, and found herself wondering if she had ever met this Angel person.  Apparently Dee trusted Oz implicitly, so that was enough for her.

"We should talk to Anders about getting you some training time.  In the meantime, you should be safe during daylight hours, but whatever you do, _do not invite any strange men into my house."  Dee made it a point to emphasize that last part.  April, while it would be overstating the matter to describe her as a slut, had her slutty moments.  Very few of her relationships seemed to extend far beyond one night._

_Glass houses, __Dee__, Dee scolded herself, __what were you_ like when you were twenty?__

"I guess I should get April home."  Dee said, trying to cover for the discomfort she knew had to be showing on her face.

Oz nodded.  "You should both get some rest."

"So," April piped up as Dee pulled out of Oz's driveway, "how did your old car _really_ get wrecked?"

Dee shrugged, "In a word: Anne.  She showed up at my old apartment building, knocked me around a bit before Oz showed up," Dee hesitated a moment, there was no reason to tell April about Oz's wolfy side, "He held her off and made her run for her car.  Let's just say that I had to use my own car to convince her to stop."

April nodded.  "So, is this genetic?  Is this something I can do too?"

"I don't think so.  I'm not sure it works that way."  She paused, "although I hear that for most of the slayers who have siblings, they usually grow up to be pretty admirable demon hunters in their own rights, but not quite slayer caliber."

April nodded.  "That's why you wanted me trained, isn't it?"

"Yes and no.  You really should get some training because, frankly, your life is in danger.  But it would be nice to have someone who can handle herself in a fight along on the late nights in the graveyard."  Dee smiled a little.

"You think I can do what you do?"

"Not as well as I do, but yeah."  Dee nodded.

"Really, though, how much worse could it get than you had tonight?"

Anne stepped gingerly into the small circle of light in front of her and genuflected.

"Is she ready?"  The voice came from no direction in particular.  It seemed to come from all around her.  The darkness around her tiny brightly lit space was impenetrable, even to her vampiric eyes.  The voice reeked of unbelievable power.

"No."  The slayer-turned-vampire spoke timidly.  "She will be soon."

"She was ready enough to defeat you."

"Only because I was injured."

"Who injured you?"

"Something healed her on that bridge.  She would not defeat me were we to face each other today."  She was not arrogant enough to believe that he didn't notice that she hadn't answered his question, but he seemed to be satisfied at her response.

"This new slayer.  She is a fascinating creature."  The voice sounded almost introspective, "She will make a fine addition to our army."

"She must… choose to join us."  Anne replied.

"Ah, yes.  What appeal does immortality have to one who has nothing to lose?"

Anne allowed a wicked smile to spread across her face, "no," she whispered, venom creeping into her voice, "she has exactly one thing to lose."

"I really need a nap."  April stepped out of the passenger side of Dee's car, and walked around to the trunk.

"Well, I hope you find the couch comfortable.  You don't have a bed yet."

_Shit._  April realized she'd forgotten about that.

"Don't worry.  We'll go tomorrow and get you a futon or something."  Dee popped the trunk, and handed April her bag.

"Hey, you're the one with the super muscles, why don't you carry my bags for me?"

"I like you, Apes, but not that much."  She stuffed the keys in her pocket.

She had parked in the street, which, surprisingly enough, was perfectly safe.  For some reason, her car was one that nobody had any real interest in stealing or vandalizing.  She figured there was magic involved in there somewhere.

Dee strode up the steps to the door, April trailing behind her, struggling with her luggage.

"It's not the biggest condo in La Jolla, but I think you'll like it.  I've got an extra room that I'm not using right now.  Not huge, but it should be comfortable enough for you."

Dee paused, when she realized she had actually succeeded in getting three whole sentences out without April interrupting her.

"Um, Dee?"

Dee whirled around.

Two vampires stood between her and April.  The closest stood on the steps, facing her, the second stood at the bottom of the steps facing April.

"Look, haven't enough of you guys died in one night?"

The vampire in front of her did not respond.  He growled at her, tensing his body to strike.

"Guess not.  April, run."  Dee launched herself down the stairs at the nearest vampire in a rather impressive flying kick that caught him under his chin, knocking him to the ground.  She landed awkwardly, but rolled over her shoulders and back to her feet.  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw April bolt.  She whirled around to the vampire she'd just struck down.  She needed to dispatch this one quickly.  Get him out of the way fast.

April ducked behind the car as the Vampire made a grab for her.  If she could keep an obstacle between her and this vampire, she had a decent chance of keeping him at bay until Dee could take care of him.

Dee would know what to do.

This was what she did.

Dee spun around in a roundhouse kick, catching the vampire in the midsection, doubling him over.  _Go down, damn you._ She commanded, silently.  She doubled up her fists, bringing them up into the ridges over his eyes.  In vampires they were acutely sensitive and to have someone drive a fist into them hurt them like nobody's business.  His back arched with the force of her blows, stretching out his ribcage, presenting his chest for a brief instant.

Dee took that moment to slip one of the chopsticks in her hair between the sixth and seventh ribs, smoothly puncturing the heart.

"Slayer."

The voice rasped through the dark night.  It was a dangerous whisper.  The whisper of the damned.

She whirled around.  The second vampire, his catlike eyes glinting in the dim streetlights held April by the throat.

"Put that down."  He nodded at the chopstick in her left hand.

Dee opened her hand, allowing it to drop.

"Let me see your hands."  Dee pulled her right hand out from behind her back, and dropped the stake she had held in it.  Then she held both hands, palm-outward to the vampire, to show they were empty.

"Thank you."

April screamed in agony as the vampire's fangs sunk deep into the base of her neck.


	5. The Stuff of Nightmares

Disclaimer:  Not mine.  Belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.  I'm just turning a few of my own characters loose on the universe.

Chapter 4:

_Dee__, you do not have room to screw this up._

She held her hands palm outward, to the vampire.  Pinched between the ring and middle fingers of her right hand, she held a small, thin shuriken, where the vampire could not see it.  The shuriken was flat and short, designed to be tucked into the waistband of her pants without so much as generating a wrinkle in her clothing.  It wouldn't kill a vampire, but it would hurt like a bitch; especially as hard as she could throw it these days.__

When she was thirteen, she used to practice her pitching by throwing baseballs at an apple April had balanced on her head.  "Wilma Tell," her father had called her.

When she'd missed, April had decided not to help her big sister practice anymore.

Now, she needed to do it again, only the consequences of missing were somewhat direr than a large bruise in the middle of her sister's forehead.

_You have exactly one chance to get this right_.  She reminded herself, _get him to let her go, then he's yours._

This bastard had touched his sister.  Now he was going to die.

The pain was excruciating as the vampire's long fangs dug deep into April's neck.  Like her soul was being forcibly ripped from her body, used to feed the unholy beast that held her in an iron grip.

She struggled, weakly, trying to free herself from the vampire's grip.  She could feel her strength fading.

A gray fog floated in front of her eyes, but through it, she could see Dee, her eyes burning with a fury she'd never seen in her before.

_Now!_  A voice in the back of Dee's mind screamed.

Almost lazily, she snapped her right wrist at the vampire, whose attention was on April's neck for the moment.

The shuriken flew with titanic force at the vampire, burying itself to the hilt in his forehead.

The sheer force of the impact drove the vampire backwards, forcing him to release April's body which fell to the ground in a rather undignified heap; blood flowing freely from the two punctures in her neck.  She was still conscious.  The vampire hadn't got much, and she was pressing her hand against her neck, which would stop the bleeding until "Fang" was dispatched.

_Good,_ Dee thought to herself.

She reached up, pulling the large silver cross she wore around her neck free.  She leapt over her sister's prone form in a flying kick that caught the vampire in the center of his chest, driving him farther backwards.  As she landed, slightly off balance, she reached into an ankle sheath, pulling out another blade, about six inches long, and dagger-like, giving the vampire time to spring elegantly to his feet.

He was young, as vampires went, but he moved smoothly and with confidence.  It looked as though Anne had taken to training her minions herself.  His stance, his fighting style, the way he moved; it was classic _Bak__ Fu Pai._

 "Metal cannot kill me."  The vampire told her.  He threw a straight punch with his right hand.

Dee sidestepped it, allowing the punch to flow, unimpeded, past her.  She reversed her grip on the knife and drove it brutally into the back of his hand, slipping it smoothly between the two bones which connected to his ring and middle fingers, burying the in the back of his hand so that a good four inches of steel protruded out of his right palm.  Then, in a single motion, she twisted the blade ninety degrees, cleanly breaking both bones at the midpoint.

The vampire growled in agony, gripping his hand in pain.

"What made you think I was going to kill you any time soon?"  Dee's voice was cool and emotionless.

This _thing_ didn't deserve to die easy.

She delivered a high snap kick that caught the vampire on the side of his head, sending him stumbling into the side of her car.  The knife was ripped free of his hand, blood dripping from its razor edges.  She stood facing him, every muscle in his body tensed, waiting for him to recover and find his feet again.  This vampire would have been a challenge for her five months ago, maybe even one month ago.

Now, he was a pretty easy kill.

Which meant that she could enjoy herself a little with him.

"C'mon, asshole," she whispered, "pick on someone your own size."  She had to grin a little.  The vampire stood a good head taller than she did.

In the back of a nondescript white cargo truck parked about four hundred yards away, Anne's finger relaxed from the trigger of the PSG-1 sniper rifle.  The sniper scope was set to a range of two hundred yards, at this range the bullet would drop about eight inches before it hit the target.  So if she aimed about three inches above the target, the laws of physics would do the rest.  She'd set herself up to hit the slayer in the left shoulder, and even as Dee danced around the vampire she'd sent after her, she kept herself on the target.

The vampire was really little more than cannon fodder.  Anne knew that in a down-and-out fight against the slayer, he really didn't stand a chance.  The sniper rifle in her hands was there purely to make sure that Dee didn't kill him too soon.  Now, he'd done his job, outlived his usefulness.

Anne couldn't help but grin at the fact that she could put an end to this slayer so easily.  Four hundred yards away, the slayer was puncturing each of her vampire's major organs one by one; completely oblivious to the fact that one quick squeeze of the trigger could shatter her skull, liquefying her brain in its casing.

To her kind, Slayers were the stuff of nightmares.  The kind of thing that made them wake up in a cold sweat and stay in at night.

The one thing her kind truly feared.

And one squeeze of the trigger and she could wipe one out.

But Osiris wouldn't like that.

Dee faced the vampire before her.  Blood flowed freely from no fewer than a dozen separate cuts, and she could not count the number of stab wounds.

The vampire launched a palm strike at her face.  It caught her off-guard snapping her head backwards sending her stumbling into a lamp post.  He followed up with a perfect roundhouse kick, catching her in the right shoulder, and knocking her to the ground.  Before she could get to her feet, the vampire was on top of her, his remaining good hand around her throat.  He was significantly weakened, having lost a lot of blood, but he could still strangle her to death quite effectively.

This was bad.  Dee had no leverage to wrench his hand off of her throat.

Anders had, fortunately, covered this possibility in her training.  She curled her body into a ball, using the vampire's grip on her as an anchor point.  She then hooked her left leg behind the vampire's neck, and levered him off of her.

She kipped up to her feet.  "Okay, now I'm really pissed."

April looked at her sister, fearfully.  She'd seen Dee angry before.  Hell, whenever she was in her mother's presence, she was angry, but she'd never seen her like this.  Dee's brow was furrowed, and he glared at the vampire before her with completely uncontrolled hatred.  Her attacks, which only moments ago had been precise, skillful became little more than brute force.  She'd tucked the knife into the waistband of her pants, apparently preferring to pummel the vampire to death with her bare hands.  She watched as Dee backhanded the vampire across the nose with her left hand, then followed it with a brutal punch with her right that caught him under his left eye.

She saw the vampire throw a left hook which Dee took full in the face.  The punch snapped her head to the side, but she seemed unaffected, as though the punch were little more than a particularly strong gust of wind.  Dee caught the vampire's arm at the wrist, then brought her right palm down at his elbow, breaking his arm in at least three different places.

The vampire screamed.

_Interesting._  Anne watched with some interest as Dee brutalized the vampire.  She could've staked him at least four times that she'd seen, but she hadn't.  She seemed determined to beat him into a bloody pulp before she killed him.

Anne had prided herself on never having lost her temper during her time as a slayer.  She'd been famous, even among the slayers, for keeping her cool.  That probably had a lot to do with Oz's calm, stoic demeanor.  Apparently it hadn't rubbed off on the new slayer as well as it had on her.

Swinging him by his newly-broken arm, Dee tossed the vampire over her hip, depositing him on his back on the street.  Before he could recover, Dee gripped his right wrist, then drove her knife through the palm of his right hand, effectively staking it to the pavement.  She then stood, standing on his broken left arm.  She looked down at him.  His black shirt had been torn almost all the way down to his navel, leaving his pale chest exposed.  She could stake him so easily right now.  He was pinned down.  He didn't have the leverage to free his right hand, and his left arm was broken and could barely move of its own accord.

He didn't deserve to go that quickly.

She looked down at the silver cross she'd held in her hand since the fight had begun, then dropped it gently in the center of his chest, right atop his heart.  She didn't so much as twitch as she heard the sickening hiss as the religious icon burned its way into him, and she smelled the sickeningly sweet smell of burning flesh.

The vampire screamed in agony, his legs kicking uselessly in an attempt to shake the cross off of his chest.  Dee watched with a cold detachment as the cross burned away the flesh beneath it, and slowly penetrated deeper into the vampire's body.

April watched, almost terrified of what her sister had become, as the cross burned its way into the vampire's ribcage, pushing inexorably closer to the vampire's still heart.

It was nearly twenty minutes before the tiny crucifix made contact with the vampire's heart, burning its way into the hollow chambers, that, in a living human would serve to pump life to all its organs and tissues.  The vampire crumbled, leaving a perfect outline of his body in the street.

Calmly, she reached down and picked up the cross from where it had landed, marking the space his heart had once occupied.  She then walked silently over to April.

"C'mon.  Let's get that bandaged up."

April was too weak to argue with her.

The place Osiris occupied was a place without sound, without light.  It was somewhere between the land of the living and that of the dead.  Limbo, you might call it, if you had such religious inclinations.  Purgatory.  No sound was ever made in this place.  Even when he communicated with someone on the outside, he could not hear their response, he merely _felt_ it.  When he spoke, he could not hear his own words.

But suppose, for a brief instant, those rules could be bent, even broken.

Suppose for a moment we _could_ hear.

We would hear laughter.

Wicked, evil laughter.


	6. What's Happened to Me?

Disclaimer:  The universe is the property of Mr. Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.  I'm not making any money off of this (although I really wish I were).  This is purely a creative exercise.

Chapter 5:

"C'mon Apes, let's see what he did to you."  Dee gently sat her little sister down on the couch and pulled her hand away from the wound.

It was still bleeding, but not badly.  The Vampire hadn't had the chance to bite too deep, and hadn't drawn a lot of blood.  Either he hadn't been terribly determined, or Dee had stopped him before he'd had a chance.  Either way, April had been lucky.

Dee reached under the couch and pulled out the first aid kit she always kept there.  She pressed a fresh gauze pad against her sister's neck.  "Here, hold this," she ordered.

"When did you get trained in First Aid?"  April asked.

"No training," Dee smiled, "I just get hurt a lot.  You get enough bites, scratches, cuts, and bruises; and you learn how to fix 'em up pretty quick."

"_You_ get bit?"

"More times than I care to keep track of.  Sort of part and parcel of the whole 'fighting the undead' thing."  Dee shrugged.  She pulled the neck of her shirt aside, revealing no less than a dozen puncture marks in various stages of healing.  "For some reason, Vampire bites seem to take longer to heal than most other things; but they do go away eventually."  _And to be honest, I don't know how I made it through tonight without bleeding at least a little.  What's Anne playing at?_  She didn't add.  All the vampires she'd faced tonight had been young, inexperienced.  She tore off a length of surgical tape and finished dressing her sister's wounds.  "There we go.  A few days and you'll be good as new."

April was silent for a long time before she spoke again, "Dee, what happened to you tonight?"  Her voice was soft, as if it were a question she was afraid to ask.

Dee looked down, and for an instant, April was certain she saw a look of shame cross over her sister's face.  It was gone in a moment "I got angry."  Dee said, simply, "I," she paused, choosing her words carefully, "I get that way, sometimes."

April knew there was more to that than Dee was telling, but she didn't press the subject.  "So, I'm gonna live?"

"You'll be fine.  You may be weak for a couple of days.  It manifests as mild anemia, but your body will fix itself pretty quickly."

"So, what do we do now?"

"Now, I find Anne, and I kill her."  Dee's brow furrowed, "Nobody touches my sister and lives."

"Um, in that case I have a few ex-boyfriends I'd like to introduce…"

"Oh, no.  Those, you have to handle on your own.  I have a strict dead-people only policy."

"You do realize that contradicts your whole 'nobody touches my sister and lives' dictum, right?"  In spite of her obvious pain, April smiled.

"Just what I need," Dee feigned exasperation, "a brat sister who corrects my logical fallacies."

"Gonna kill Anne, are you?  Sounds violent."

"Yeah.  Plus I haven't the faintest idea how I'm going to find her."

"Really?  'Cause if I were you, I'd look through that vampire's wallet to see if I could find something there."

"I would, but it kinda dusted with the rest of him.  Nobody ever explained that to me.  I never really got why the clothes they were wearing crumbled too."

"Well, you could, if, for example, it wasn't on him when he dusted."  April was grinning.

"Apes…"

She reached into her jacket, and produced a black leather wallet, "What can I say?  Li'l sis has a few tricks up her sleeves too."

"You pinched his wallet while he was biting you?"

"Reflex, I guess.  Whenever I needed cash, I'd hop a crowded bus.  You'd be amazed how easy it is to snatch a wallet or two without anybody noticing." She smiled, "it's always easy to zero in on the really rich, dumb ones, too; the ones who won't mind losing a couple of hundred here or there."

"Where'd you learn to do that?"  Dee asked her.

"A little here, a little there.  I learned to do it for a talent show at school a while back; you know, steal people's stuff then hand it back to them on stage.  Snatched mom's wristwatch right off of her wrist a couple of times."  April smiled, "Oh, and you may want this back."  She produced one of the wooden stakes that Dee always kept in her inside jacket pocket.

"You little klepto."  Dee shook her head, "At least now I know who to ask if anything goes missing."

"Well, I thought I might need a stake if I was gonna be hanging around you, and I figured you had those chopsticks happening, so not having a stake in your pocket wasn't necessarily a handicap."  April shrugged.

Dee looked down at the stake in her hand, then held it out to her little sister, "next time, just ask me."

"I, uh, don't exactly know how to use this."  April pointed out.

"No, but you'll learn.  I'll have Anders cover it with you."  Dee smiled, warmly.  "For now, get some sleep.  You have your first day in class tomorrow, and I don't think 'I got bit by a vampire' will work as an excuse."

Anne watched the front of Dee's condominium complex until Dee turned off the light.  She had no siblings of her own, but she imagined that even so, she would have felt guilty about using the slayer's sister as such a pawn during her human days.

April was an innocent, and to a large degree, it rather sucked for her to be involved in this.

Oh well, what was done was done.

As soon as April was asleep, Dee closed the door to her bedroom and picked up the phone.

"Oz?  It's Dee.  Sorry to call so late."

"No problem, what happened?"

"April and I got attacked on my doorstep.  She got bitten."  Dee summed up.

"Is she okay?"

"She's fine."  Dee paused for a moment, "I have to start taking the fight to Anne.  I need to hurt her somehow, keep her off my back."

"We need to find her first."

"I've got an idea about that.  Could you use your considerable sway to check out the Pyramid Import/Export company down by the Bay?"

"Yeah.  Why?"

"I'm looking thorough one of the vampire's wallets and I found a business card for that company in it.  It's the only thing in there that seems out of place."  She told him.

"You pick pocketed him while you were slaying him?"

"No, April did that."

"April slayed him?"

"No, pick pocketed him."

"Oh."

"Just find out what you can, I'll talk to you about it tomorrow."

"No problem."

The next morning, Dee gently shook April awake.  She was understandably tired, but she had an 8:30 class that morning, and Dee wasn't about to let her miss it.

"Yeah, mom, I'm up, I'm up."  April muttered groggily.

"Mistaking me for that woman isn't a great way of getting into my good books," Dee replied, coldly.

April shook the cobwebs out of her head, coming to the realization of where she was, "Oh, yeah."

"Shower's yours, and I've got some muffins in the breadbox.  Help yourself."

April rolled off of the couch and padded her way in her flannel pajamas towards the bathroom.  She stopped at her duffel bag to pick up some clothes and her toiletries.

_Ugh_. She felt like she'd been dragged through a mud puddle, then dumped on the side of the road.  Her hair was tangled and knotted, she still had a sharp pain at the base of her neck where the vampire had bitten her.  She had what felt like a number of bruises all over her body.  As she started the shower and allowed the water to warm up, she ran her fingers along her ribs.  They felt a little tender, and had turned a rather sickening shade of blue.  Her neck had some bruises where the vampire had held her.  She didn't have any obvious bruises on her face, so just about everything could be hidden pretty easily.  A turtleneck sweater, a pair of slacks.  Nobody would be the wiser.

The hot water gently massaged the aches out of her abused limbs.  She pulled Dee's makeshift bandage free from her neck, and found that the wound was no longer bleeding.  It felt like there was a little bruising around it, but nothing serious.  She'd been lucky.  Very few people survived a vampire attack.

_But then, very few people have a sister who kills them professionally._

She stepped gingerly out of the shower and dressed.  The violet turtleneck covered her bruises nicely, and in the pre-autumn chill, nobody would look at her oddly in the sweater.

She reached for the hairbrush by the sink and started fixing the disaster that was her hair this morning.

She froze.

Her reflection in the mirror was there, to be sure, but it was translucent.  As if it were being superimposed over a photograph.  She could see straight through herself to see the towel hanging on the rack behind her.

She quickly ran her hands over her body, as if reassuring herself that she was, indeed, still there.  A loud scream caught itself in her throat.  She looked again at herself in the mirror.

"April?  Apes, are you okay?"  Dee's muffled voice sounded through the door, "I thought I heard a scream."

"N-no.  I'm fine.  I'm just a little jumpy is all."  April, fortunately, was a much better liar than her sister.

_What the hell's happened to me?_


	7. Welcome to my parlor

Disclaimer:  Nope, not mine.  Belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.

Author's note:  Okay, so I haven't updated this in a looooooooong time.  Sorry.  I had to do some serious thinking about where I wanted this story to go and what was happening with all of these characters I've spent most of my free time developing.  Updates should be more frequent in the future.

Chapter 6:

The inside of Dee's left forearm collided forcefully with April's as the two stood facing each other in a low horse stance.  In unison, the two sisters swung their arms fluidly upwards to collide again at head level.  Then they each allowed their arms to drop, colliding again at waist-level in a standard three-star exercise.

Anders watched with some interest as the two sisters batted their forearms against each other in an activity designed to condition and toughen them.  In many ways it was like watching Dee work out with herself, the two were so alike in appearance.  April, in spite of her young age stood less than an inch shorter than her sister, and her hair, though slightly lighter than Dee's, hung in exactly the same way.  In spite of their physical similarities, however, the two were vastly different in temperament.  In many ways, certainly, April was as aggressive as her older sister, but it was a more subdued aggression.  Dee would launch herself at a threat, often giving little to no thought to her own safety.  April was more of a thinker.  The _yin to Dee's __yang._

More than that, he was pleased to see the effect that April was having on his slayer.  He'd actually caught Dee smiling only two days before.  He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her smile with something other than a joke.  It was as if having April around allowed her to let go of a hidden pain.  Dee was certainly happier than he'd seen her in a very long time.  Actually, he wasn't entirely certain he'd ever seen Dee happy, period.

April was no slayer, and she never would be, but in the three months she'd been training, she had become quite a skilled martial artist in her own right.  Her thin, lithe figure was perfect for _Bak__ Fu Pai.  The White Tiger style of __Kung Fu relied upon being able to move and yield with an incoming blow rather than to directly oppose it, making the difference between your opponent's strength and yours irrelevant.  April could move more quickly than most people simply because she had less weight to throw around._

The fight was getting harder.  Dee had appeared more and more frequently in the mornings with scratches, bruises and bite marks; even after a night's worth of slayer healing.  This morning had been the worst he'd seen her in a long time.  Her wounds had healed as the day progressed, but for about an hour that day she'd looked as though she'd been beaten within an inch of her life.  Dee had been less than forthcoming with details, but the injuries were such that no amount of makeup could cover it.  Most of the office had assumed that she simply had an abusive boyfriend and had, predictably, pretended not to notice.  This was probably the only time that Anders had actually been grateful for that particular human tendency.

As far as he knew, a slayer had never been turned.  Faith had certainly dabbled on the darker side of things for a while, but she'd come back from the brink in time to help in the final battle against the First.  He'd have to consult the codex, but he knew of no slayer who had faced such a foe.  To have a slayer Vampire not only fighting, but training the forces of evil…  He shook his head, no wonder Dee was getting beaten up.

"Talk to me, Oz."  Dee's face was firm, determined when she sat across from Oz's desk.

"Pyramid Import/Export?"

She nodded, "It's time," she said, simply.

"A relative newcomer on the Bay, they run their operation right here out of San Diego."  He opened a file in front of him, "they have one of the largest shipping fleets in California.  Mostly small craft."  He read a little further, "they also have a respectable fleet of cargo aircraft."

"Cargo aircraft, cargo ships.  Call me crazy, but if you were staging a secret war, and had soldiers who had unfortunate reactions to sunlight, how would you position them around the world?"

Oz nodded, silently.  "How many foot soldiers do you think Osiris has his hands on?"

Dee shrugged, "If I had to guess, I'd say that he had an endless supply.  No matter how many I kill, he always seems to have more."

Oz bit his lower lip, "big cities tend to have a lot of people nobody would miss."

Dee nodded, "and they're getting better, stronger."

"Anders told me what you looked like this morning."

"Did he."  Dee's voice was hard, but unsurprised.

"Dee, he's just worried about you."

"He should keep his worries to himself."

"He would, if it was him he was worried about."

"I can take care of myself."  She waved a hand at him, stopping him from saying any more.

"Yourself, sure.  How about April, or a city of people who don't even know your name?"

Dee was silent.

"This isn't just about you anymore, Dee."

"Pyramid Import/Export.  Where do they operate out of?"

"They lease a building downtown."  He pushed a paper across his desk where Dee took it.

Dee looked at it, reading it carefully.

"What are you going to do?"

Dee smiled, "I'm gonna pay them a visit; and I'm gonna bring April with me."

Oz actually looked stunned, "tell me you're joking."

Dee shook her head, "She deserves to see this finished."

"You really think you can stop Osiris?"

"Osiris won't be there."

"Then, why…"  He stopped, realizing, "You're going after Anne."

Dee nodded, "I think it's about time I finish what I started on the bridge, don't you?"

The side of the building was actually an easier climb than some of the free-climbs Dee had done in her time.  It was a little sheerer than the Castleton tower in Utah (which reminded her; she hadn't been out climbing in a while… Maybe April would like to head out to Utah with her this weekend), her favorite climb, but it didn't require her to improvise much.  Rock is put together essentially at random, forcing you to make it up as you went.  The building was basically a stepladder.  Once you managed to climb over one rung of the ladder, all you had to do was repeat the same motions over and over again.  It didn't require much in the way of reading the rock.  She was also carrying significantly more weight than she normally did while climbing.  She had a pair of stakes tucked into her belt, two _Wakizashi criss-crossed her back, and as always, she had a pair of chopsticks in her hair.  She was better-armed than she typically was, simply because she didn't know what she was going to run into once she was inside._

She was also wearing a harness; something she practically never did.

She smoothly slid a camming device into a small crack between two bricks.  It was only about a half-inch deep; plenty for the small spring-loaded device.  It had been years since Dee had used any protection whatsoever while climbing, but it had been years since she'd climbed with a partner, too.

April stood at the bottom, feeding the rope out to her sister as she slowly progressed upwards.  It had been a while since April had done any climbing; but having a super-strong sister meant that she probably wouldn't have to.  The plan was for Dee to get to the top, set up an anchor, and hoist her up.  April would pick up the cams as she was hoisted.  They figured that would be quicker than April trying to climb on her own.  Dee had had a good 230 foot rope left over from the time when she used to climb with her father, plenty to make it to the top of the eight-story building, with a fair margin added in.  It was still in perfect shape.

April shook her head.  No rope could survive seven years if it had been used regularly.  Dee's climbing shoes, on the other hand, had shown quite a bit of wear; and most of it looked recent.

_She's been climbing without ropes_, April realized.  April had only ever met two types of people who would climb without any protection whatsoever: the adrenaline junkies and those who had nothing to lose.  Dee was not an adrenaline junky.

Dee still didn't know about her, as far as she knew.  Her reflection had oscillated back and forth between being almost as solid as it was normally, and being so faint as to be nearly invisible.  It had been exactly eighty-four days since she'd been attacked on Dee's doorstep.  She knew that because her reflection was at its faintest on every twenty-eighth day following the attack, and it was at its faintest today.

Dee peeked gingerly over the edge of the roof.  Nobody.  It looked as though they didn't expect her.

She scanned the rooftop carefully.  No cameras, nothing.

_This doesn't feel right._

A single door on the roof allowed access to the helicopter landing pad, as she'd figured.  She hoped that security would be lower here, since there was no access to the roof from outside apart from by helicopter; not exactly a stealthy approach.

But she couldn't see any cameras.  This made no sense.

She wasn't exactly about to look a gift horse in the mouth, however, so…

She vaulted over the building's edge and walked to the scaffolding under the helicopter pad.  That would make a perfect anchor point.

There were very few things more satisfying, Anne realized, than seeing your adversary do exactly what you wanted her to do.  _She really is quite good_, Anne thought with some admiration as she watched the slayer dart under the landing pad and out of the view of the tiny camera she'd had placed on the rooftop specifically for this moment.  To her credit, if she hadn't known that she was coming, Anne doubted that Dee would have been detected.

_Welcome to my parlor, said the spider to the fly_.

The advantage of immortality was the fact that it made you very patient.  You could, in principle, wait forever.  She'd anticipated Dee showing up a little sooner than she did, but it didn't bother her particularly that it took her a little longer than she'd expected.  All the pieces were now in play, it was time to move for a quick checkmate.

April threw an arm over the edge of the roof and dragged herself up and over.  Anders hadn't been exaggerating about Slayer strength.  Dee had pulled her up the side of the wall effortlessly.

She darted across the roof, wincing as the metal camming devices she had attached to her harness clanged loudly.

"Next time we decide to make an illegal entry into a building," April whispered as she tucked her thin frame tightly into the space under the landing pad next to Dee's, "I vote we leave the cams behind."

Dee smiled, "On that note, leave 'em here."

April nodded gratefully, on top of making a lot of noise, the equipment was heavy.

"Stay behind me.  If someone manages to get by me, use that."  Dee pointed to the stake April had tucked into her jacket.

"Yes ma'am."

"If anything happens to me, make your way back up here and rappel down the side of the building; then run and don't stop running until you get to Oz's place."

April nodded.

"Do you have keys to my car?"

April shook her head, "Don't need 'em."

"What?"

"Well, you know mom has a really nice car and there were a couple of times when I wanted to, well, borrow it."  April grinned.

"You taught yourself to hotwire a car?"

"It beats having to take the bus out on a date."  April's grin widened.

"How many times did you set off the alarm trying?"

"A lot, at first, but after a while I could look at a circuit and figure out the obvious traps."  April smiled, "she kept upgrading the system, too.  I think she figured out that I kept borrowing her car."

"You wouldn't happen to have any hobbies that _won't have the police beating down my door, would you?"_

"I'll let you know."

"Just so we're clear, if the police ever do show up at my doorstep, I'm handing you over."

In unison, the two darted towards the door at the far end of the rooftop.

Dee rested her hand against the door, just above the doorknob.  This would make more noise than she would have liked, but it would work.

With a scream of tortured metal, the door swung opened, clanging against the wall of the dark stairwell.

"Stealthy, Dee."

"There's nobody here."  Dee whispered.

"Yeah, but the sound could have carried a long way."

"No," Dee replied, "I mean why isn't anybody watching this door?"  She turned to April, "If you were an evil, dead person, wouldn't you watch the roof, just in case; or at least wire it with _some_ kind of security device?"  April now realized that Dee held a stake in each hand, expecting the stairwell to be crowded with vampires, apparently.

April looked around.  Dee was right.  The stairway led down to a small open area, and it was empty, "So what do we do?"

Dee shrugged, "what else?  We keep going."

The two stalked silently down the stairs, keeping low to the ground to move more quickly and silently.

They stepped off the bottom step into an open, dimly lit area.  Above their heads were pipes and wiring of some kind.

"Dee, I really don't like this."  April's voice wasn't frightened, exactly, but it was uneasy.

"Me neither."

"Not your most reassuring line."  April told her.

"I had one," Dee told her, "but they talked me out of it."

"'They?'  Who?"  April turned to look in the same direction as her sister.  "Oh."  She could see a pair of vampires just stepping out of the shadows at the far end of the room.  April saw Dee stiffen and her breathing quicken.  "Dee, what are you waiting for?  It's just two of 'em."

Dee looked up, "it's not just two."

From the space above them where they'd assumed was nothing but pipes and wiring fell dozens of vampires; positioned perfectly to encircle the two sisters.  They landed smoothly, fangs bared; each was prepared to strike.

"Apes, stay behind me," Dee whispered to her sister, knowing even as she said it that it wouldn't do any good.  She couldn't defend herself and her sister, not against such a concerted effort.  Anne had known they were coming, and had set a trap.

Sharing a single thought, the two sisters darted for the stairwell they had entered by, only to find that it, too was blocked by a single vampire.

She walked smoothly down the stairs and into the light, pushing her red hair away from her eyes.

"Anne."  Dee made no effort to hide the spite in her voice.

Anne's vampiric eyes seemed to glow in the dim light.  "Checkmate," she whispered.


	8. Duel

Disclaimer:  The universe isn't mine, but a sizeable number of the characters are.  Joss Whedon developed the universe, I'm just allowing a few of my own characters to run around in it.

Chapter 7:

"Dee."  Anne nodded respectfully at the slayer as she slowly, methodically descended the steps into the dim light, "took you long enough to show up."

"Anne."  Dee glared at the woman who, no more than a year before, had held her position on the San Diego Hellmouth.

_Brilliant strategic thinking, Dee_, she admonished herself, _file this right under "Bay of Pigs."_

"I was wondering when you'd get around to finding this little _hideout_" Anne emphasized the last word, sarcastically, "I thought it would be a little sooner."  She shifted her gaze to the Slayer's younger sibling, "bringing little sister along, though; not exactly your brightest move."

Dee's eyes narrowed into fierce slits, "she heard that you did a killer imitation of the contents of a dust pan.  She didn't want to miss it."

Anne smiled, "you've mellowed in your old age, Dee."  She paused, her face twisting in a wicked grimace, "I saw what you did to that vampire outside your house, and I heard what you did to that assassin Osiris sent after you way back when you were just starting."  She smiled nastily, "now look at you; the picture of composure."

In truth, Dee could feel the anger bubbling up just under her heart, slowly rising to a boil.  It took more self-control than she knew she had to keep it in check.  It was only the absolute certainty that it would be a short fight that kept her from pounding Anne into something which resembled a raspberry pancake.  The fight with Anne, she could probably win.  Anne was just a vampire.  Admittedly a vampire with the strength and skill of a slayer, but she was still a vampire.  Dee was a slayer.  _The slayer in San Diego.  She could take her._

It was the fight with the vampires that stood around her that had her worried.  The most she had ever taken down at once was four.

But she would have been lying if she said that at least part of her didn't wonder exactly how many she could take down if she just let go.  She'd gone berserk once, turned herself into little more than a pit of anger and fury, held up only by bloodlust.  Maybe if she let herself go, lashed out at as many of the undead beasts as she possibly could, she could take some of them down with her.  Maybe as many as ten.

_But then what happens to April?_

Dee fought not to show the anguish on her face.  She'd been maneuvered into this position, and rather brutally.  The van on the freeway, the attack on her doorstep, all designed to get her pissed off enough to go on the offensive, and to force her to act defensively when she did it.  Like trying to run a marathon with one foot encased in a cement boot.

_The secret to victory,_ Anders had told her, _is knowing what your opponent wants, and making him believe that he can get it from you._  That was Anders' theory as to why the Slayer was always a young attractive woman; the Vampire's favorite meal.  A worm on the hook who had the capacity to bite back, figuratively speaking.

_So what does Anne want?_

"So, what's the plan now, Dee?"  Anne descended the last step and stood before the raven-haired slayer; her red hair hung in a long braid down her back.  "Fight your way out?"  Anne looked around the circle of vampires around the two sisters, "'cause I really don't like your chances."

"You sure about that?"

Anne smiled, "two nights ago, you took out four vampires; and you were just barely able to crawl out of the graveyard afterwards."

"Dee…"  April's voice was tremulous, nervous.

"April."  Anne walked over to the younger Chlopan sister.  "Scared?  I don't blame you.  You're probably not going to make it out of this room alive."  Anne nodded at the slayer, "You can thank big sis for that one."  She took a step towards April.

"You reach for her, and I swear you'll pull back a stump."

The vampires surrounding them growled and stepped forward at the threat.

Anne held up a hand, silencing them.  She looked at Dee, allowing her vampiric face to show, "the slayer shows her fangs."

At Dee's silence, she went on, "and for who, exactly?"  She waved a hand at April, "a sister who, a year ago, would have just as soon spit in your face as spoken to you."  She fixed her yellow, catlike eyes on Dee's, "and now you go and get her killed on a rather pathetically simple ruse."  She stepped up to the slayer, bringing her face inches from the Dee's, "what would your father say?"

Dee set loose a savage punch.  She didn't care about what the response would be; as long as she managed to knock Anne's head off of her shoulders.

Anne twisted smoothly out of the way, deflecting the savage blow away from her face.  She responded with a snap-kick that the slayer never even saw coming.  It connected at her right temple, stunning the smaller woman.  Dee dropped heavily to her knees.

"I must say, Dee, you're quite possibly the most predictable slayer ever to be called."

"Go to hell."

Anne's face reverted to its normal human appearance.  "Eventually."  She looked around, "but I think it's safe to say that you'll be making that trip a lot sooner than I will."

Dee made no attempt to mask the effort it took to stand, "I've beaten you once."

"Beat up one injured woman and you suddenly think you're hot shit?"  Anne shook her head, sarcastically, "I don't know if you've noticed, but you don't have a car to hit me with, this time."

"Are you so sure I need one?"

"I just knocked you off of your feet in less than ten seconds.  Believe me, you need your car."

"Don't suppose you're willing to let my sister and I go and grab it?  It's parked in the street."

Anne smiled, "in a word: 'no,' but I will give you the chance to get something you've wanted for a long time."

"Exactly what do you have that I would want?"

Anne's smile widened, "me."

"You."

Anne nodded, "You face me.  You win, you and your sister walk out of here.  You lose, I have you both for lunch."

"And you expect me to trust you to keep your word?"

"I won't be around to countermand it, and my men won't disobey one of my orders, even after I'm dead."  She paused for a moment, waving her had at her small army of vampires, "not that you have a choice in the matter."

"'Men?'  What, no girl vampires hanging around?"  Dee looked around her.  There were indeed no females.  Actually, now that she thought of it, she couldn't remember encountering a single female vampire since becoming the Slayer.

Except for Anne, of course.

Anne shrugged, "Osiris doesn't trust them.  He forbids me from turning any."

"Really?"  Dee arched her eyebrows, "nice to know who wears the pants in your relationship."

Anne threw a hard punch that Dee didn't bother trying to deflect.  It slammed brutally into her right cheekbone, snapping her head hard to the left.

_Ouch._  Dee brought her hand up to her cheek, touching it gingerly.  _That's gonna leave a mark._

"Struck a nerve, did I?"  Dee brought her gaze back to the Vampire.

"Do we have a deal?"  Anne stared at her counterpart.

"Do I have a choice?"  Dee countered.

Anne shook her head, "Sure.  Take the deal now, and I'll make sure you die quickly.  Turn me down, and I'll make sure that both you and your sister enjoy every moment of a very long, excruciatingly painful death."

"I thought you said we'd walk of I won."

"Just how likely do you think that is?"

"You're a vampire.  I've lost count of the number of your kind I've killed."

Anne didn't back down from Dee's stare, "You're human.  I eat your kind for breakfast."

"The one time you've faced me yourself, you lost, badly."  Dee shook her head, "your minions haven't fared much better."

Anne turned to a pair of vampires behind April.  "Hold the runt.  If the slayer wins, you're to escort them to street level and let them go."  She turned back to Dee, "I think you'll find that a more agreeable way of exiting the building than the way you came in."

The two vampires stepped forward to grab April by her arms, dragging her back outside the circle of vampires which closed around the two women.

Dee pulled held out a pair of stakes, preparing for the inevitable conflict.

"Take whatever weapons you need."  Anne nodded at the pair of swords Dee still wore across her back, "I already have mine."  Anne again allowed her demonic face to show.

Vampire slayer and slayer vampire circled each other slowly; each watching the other move, each waiting for the other to strike.

Each knowing that in a few minutes, it would all end.


	9. Blood Feud

Disclaimer:  The universe is the property of Mr. Joss Whedon.  I didn't invent it, I didn't create it.  I'm just maliciously allowing a few of my own characters to have free reign in that universe.  Yay.

Chapter 8:

_This is _not_ going to be much fun._

Dee stood, her arms held in a standard _Kung Fu_ guard position as she circled the larger vampire.

_She's just another vampire, Dee, _she thought to herself, _you can take her.  You _have_ taken her._

Anne had her eyes fixed on her, waiting for the Slayer to commit to an attack.

_She's just another vampire._

Dee threw a haymaker punch, aimed at Anne's left temple, the stake clenched tightly in her right hand.  It was a feint, with no real force behind it.  Anne twisted out of the way, bringing her arms up to block.  Dee bent her arm, evading the block as she dropped into a low stance, then sprang back at the Vampire with a vicious backfist at the vampire's right temple.  Anne ducked under it, coiling her body like a spring, then she bounded back at the slayer, landing a snap-kick at the Slayer's midsection.  She followed with a brutal nailing kick at Dee's knee.  She finished the combination, slamming the heel of her left hand up under the slayer's chin.  The blow threw the diminutive brunette across the small arena the two women had into a pair of unyielding vampires.  She dropped, relatively undignified, to the ground.

_Okay, she's a vampire who's learned a few new tricks in the last year._  She had the queerest feeling of déja-vu.  Once again, the former slayer was outclassing her.  It was a good thing she hadn't eaten, otherwise she would be sorely tempted to throw up.  Her lungs felt as though they'd had all the air squeezed out of them, then had had concrete poured into them.  They didn't seem to want to deflate.  Her right knee didn't feel broken, just bent in a weird direction.  She could still fight on it.

April winced sympathetically as she saw her sister drop in a heap to the floor.  She had watched Dee fight more times than she could remember, but she had never once seen a Vampire land the first punch.  It was clear that these two had a history, although Dee had been less-than-forthcoming with details of that history.  It was clear that Anne wasn't one of Dee's favorite people; though Dee had never specified what had led to this literal and figurative blood feud between the two.

Dee pulled herself to her feet.  It wasn't the elegant handspring April had seen her sister do so many times.  It was a slow, labored motion.  Whatever the Vampire had hit her with, it had really sent the slayer reeling.

Anne paced, almost leisurely in front of Dee as she rose painfully to her feet, "still have trouble with patience, do you?"  She shook her head, "that's what almost got you killed last time."

"It turned out pretty well that time."  Dee wasn't trying to hide the effort it took to force the words out.  She still had the two stakes clenched in her fists.  She was gripping them so tightly that even from the opposite side of the arena, April could see that her knuckles were turning white.  She tried to pull away from the vampires holding her, but they were simply too strong.

That, and the rather nasty-looking broadsword each one was carrying discouraged anything which could be construed as resistance.

"Yeah, I've been meaning to ask you about that."  Anne crossed the ten feet between her and the slayer in a blur, gripping Dee by the throat, "what was it that fixed you on the bridge that night?"

"Maybe I was never broken."  Dee's voice rasped through the Vampire's grip.  She just needed a couple of seconds.  Just two seconds to rest, get her bearings back, regain the advantage for just a split second.

"Oh, no.  You were definitely broken."  Anne smiled, conspiratorially, "was it the lesbian witch?  Just between us girls, Oz never quite recovered from the way they broke it off, but he wouldn't have hesitated to ask for her help if he needed to."

"What 'fixed' me," Dee drove the wooden stake in her right hand into the Vampire's arm; about midway between the wrist and the elbow.  She felt Anne's grip slacken, and her feet dropped to the floor.  She drove her forehead as hard as she could through the larger Vampire's, stunning her as she advanced, locking her right knee behind Anne's, and pushed the Vampire to the ground.  She dropped on top of the vampire, the stake in her hand poised to slam into the center of Anne's chest, "is none of your damned business."  She drove the stake downwards.

Anne wasn't going to let it be that easy.

Before the stake could connect, she rolled to her left and sprang to her feet.  "Slayer's still got a little fight in her," she smiled venomously, "works for me."

Dee reached for the clasp in the center of her chest and released it.  The two swords on her back fell to the ground.  At the moment, they were doing little other than impeding her movement, and it was unlikely that she'd have the chance to reach for them anyway.  She had one chance to get both her and her sister out of this alive, and it depended on her being able to move like a sonuvabitch.  She took a quick mental inventory of the weapons she was still carrying.  Two blackwood chopsticks in her hair, a wooden stake in each hand, and a dagger in her boot.  Small weapons that didn't slow her down, and if she did this just right, it would be enough.

Even had it not been for the fact that she had a vested interest in the outcome of the combat between the two enemies, April had to admit that she would probably have found the two women's different styles quite interesting.  They both seemed to use the same style, their moves were almost identical, but the way in which they were applied was vastly different.  Anne was all technique.  Her stance, her strikes, the way she moved was classic _Bak__ Fu Pai_, and it was perfect.  Dee, by contrast had a far less refined style.  Still _Bak__ Fu Pai_, but her strikes and attacks showed far more aggression.  Her strikes were brutal and direct, with none of the flair that her Vampire counterpart had shown.  She concentrated on what worked, rather than what looked good.

Dee dove over Anne's leg as she attempted to sweep it under her knocking her off balance.  She rolled forward, coming back to her feet facing the vampire.

"Metal?"  Anne looked at the dagger Dee had retrieved from the sheath in her boot, "how long have you been handling the slayer gig now?"

Dee made no response as she hurled the dagger at one of the overhead pipes, one that was thickly insulated, praying that it was what she thought it was.

The steel blade, thrown with a force that no normal human could achieve struck the PVC pipe point first, and penetrated to the hilt in it.

Water has a rather interesting property when held under pressure.  Namely that you can force it well above its boiling point without it actually boiling, as long as it is held under pressure.  In principle, if you keep it under pressure, it will _never_ boil.

When that pressure is released, however…

The knife fired out of the pipe with the approximate force of a crossbow bolt, Dee had to dive to the side to avoid receiving it hilt-first in the forehead.  The water the pipe carried, well above its boiling point, pushed its way out through the path of least resistance, and dozens of gallons of superheated water burst into thick steam in an instant, raining down on the two women, masking them for a moment from the vampires which surrounded them.

April felt both of the vampires holding her jerk backwards and she felt their hands on her arms loosen their grips.

No, it wasn't that.  She didn't feel them loosening, she felt them dissolving.

Her gaze shot to the vampire to her right, as he looked down in stunned shock, a long blackwood chopstick marking the center of his chest.  He held that stunned look right until his body crumbled in a neat pile of dust and ash.

April still hadn't put together a picture of what had happened when a large object slammed into her, lifting her off her feet carrying her into the darkness.  She saw a glimpse of dark hair which, until moments ago, had been held in place by a pair of blackwood chopsticks.

Dee.

Dee could not remember ever having run so fast.  Not when she'd slammed that homerun all those years ago, not when her father had… died and the sheer shame of what she'd done had sent her fleeing from the hospital, not when her mother had come to see her graduate, and she couldn't bring herself to walk across the stage.  Never had she run so fast.  There was a long, narrow hallway at the end of the room.  If she could get them in there, the Vampires would be forced to come after them two at a time at most.

That, she could handle.

Dee's desperation move had bought them maybe two seconds of confusion.  Anne was buried in the cloud of steam Dee had created and with any luck, wouldn't know exactly what had happened for at least a second.  The minions weren't smart enough to figure out what to do on their own, so until Ann knew what was going on, they had a window.

"What are you waiting for, you idiots?  Get after them!"

But, apparently, not a very big window.  Already, she could hear the disorganized footsteps of the Vampires behind them as they bottlenecked into the narrow hallway.

Dee could see a door at the end of the hallway.  She skidded to a stop, still holding her sister over her shoulder, and threw a sidekick putting as much of her Slayer-enhanced muscle as she could behind it.

The door held.

"Shit."

She kicked again, the door clanged, but stubbornly refused to open.  She checked the doorknob.  It was locked.

The Vampires were getting closer, and they were trapped.

"Dee, let me down, now!"  The authority in April's voice practically forced Dee to comply.

"What are you…?"  Dee realized that April had a keyring in her hand, holding a dozen or so keys.

"You take care of them," she nodded at the line of Vampires now coming dangerously close, "I've got this."

"Apes, you've just earned yourself a ride home."  Dee told her as she stood before the incoming horde of Vampires, as if daring them to come at her.

The first two vampires rushed her.  She ducked to the left as one of them swung a sword overhand down at her, she delivered a snapkick just below his ribcage, bending him forward, she slammed the stake in her left hand into his back.  She dropped into a low spin, bringing the point of her second stake into the center of the second Vampire's chest as he swung his own sword down at the Slayer's undefended back.  Both vanished in a cloud of ash.

_Those were the "gimmies,"_ she thought to herself, _the next two will be more cautious; the two after that will be more cautious still._

As if hearing her thoughts, the two vampires who now led the others reflexively reared back from the slayer.  For the first time since she and April had been trapped, she saw fear in their eyes.

The first attacked with a perfect side-kick, catching Dee in the midsection.  The air in her lungs blasted out, doubling the slayer over for the second it took for the Vampire to follow it up with a downwards slash with his sword.

Dee recovered fast enough to straighten up and catch the Vampire's forearms on her own, delivering a kick to his groin.  She used his momentary lapse in concentration to deliver a stake to the center of his chest.  The second vampire was already mid-swing in an attempt to decapitate her while she dispatched his companion.  She dropped down allowing the blade to cut through the air and the cloud of dust which had once been the vampire before her.  The blade buried itself it the chest of the vampire behind him, who growled in pain and anger, backhanded the bridge of the Vampire's nose.

_Dissention in the ranks?__  I can live with that._

She slammed the stake deep in the Vampire's chest as he recovered from his companion's attack.

"Dee, I've got it!"

_God bless you, April._  

April swung the door opened, then twisted the key in the lock, locking the door.  _If we're going to escape this way, best to make sure that it's hard for them to follow._  She smoothly snapped the key to the left, breaking it off inside the lock as Dee rolled backwards through the door and she slammed it shut, hearing the lock slide into place.  If Dee couldn't break that door down, it seemed likely that none of the Vampires on the other side could either.  She'd blocked the lock, so nobody could open the door from the other side.

Anne smiled as she watched the door slam, blocking them from the Slayer and her sister.  _So far, so good._

She held a two-way radio up to her lips, "the mouse has cleared the mousetrap.  I want all personnel to allow them free passage all the way to the lobby."

The building was rather simply laid out.  Stairwells in every corner, all leading down to the first floor.  It looked as though they had caught Anne and her cronies off-guard by getting out of her little trap, as they encountered no resistance whatsoever on the trip down to the first floor.  Dee had looked over the blueprints and knew that the second and ground floors both opened into a large lobby, which, to her knowledge was the only other way in and out of the building.

The lobby was remarkably elaborate.  Like a palace in itself.  It looked as if Evil was a pretty profitable enterprise these days.  The front door was locked with what appeared to be an electronic lock of some variety.

"Apes, can you open that?"

"I don't know.  No promises."

"Don't worry, if you can't, I'll just break the glass.  I just don't want to draw more attention than I have to."

"More attention than you drew a few minutes ago?"

"Shut up.  Can you open it?"  Dee pressed.

April frowned, "I don't have to."

"What?"

"It's unlocked."

"That can't be right.  They knew we were coming, they would have at least locked the front door."

"Maybe they knew you could break the glass anyway."

Dee shook her head, "That's not Anne's style."

"You're about to look a gift horse in the mouth?"

Dee shook her head, "hell, no.  Let's go."

"Stop right there, Slayer."

Dee froze, and turned slowly to face her nemesis.  "Anne, this habit of showing up just as I'm about to break in or out of your building is getting really annoying."

The Vampires she'd had with her now lined the balcony which overlooked the lobby from the second floor.

"You assume I'm here to stop you."

"Well, yeah.  When someone says 'stop right there,' I assume it means that they want me to stop."

"Oh, I intend to let you leave.  Your sister, however, has to stay."

"Really.  How exactly were you planning on making me leave her behind?"

Anne smiled, "I don't have to."

She raised her left hand.  Out of the corner of her eye, Dee saw her sister stiffen, then slowly take a step forward, as if in a trance.

"April."  Dee turned to her sister, trying to grab her attention.  It was to no avail.  Her eyes seemed focused on some distant point as she walked relentlessly forward.

"April."  She reached out, grabbing her sister by the arm.

She felt something surge through her, as though she'd gripped a high-voltage wire.  She felt her pulse quicken and her breathing halt.  She felt every muscle in her body contract.  The air in her lungs was blown out by the random contractions of her diaphragm, and the muscles in her legs slackened, nearly dropping her to the ground.

April, however, finally reacted to her sister's efforts.  She slowly, casually turned to face her sister as she attempted to bring her breathing under control, then casually closed and opened her eyes.

They were yellow, catlike.

Her brow deepened, taking on a cromagnonesque appearance, as though she'd grown a new plate of bone under the skin of her forehead protecting her eyes.

And from her teeth grew a very long, nasty looking pair of fangs.

"As you can see," Anne replied, "she no longer has a place with you."


	10. Consequences

Disclaimer:  I don't own anything, as much as I wish I did.  It's Joss Whedon's universe, I'm just playing around in it for a while.

Chapter 9:

"I can almost hear what you're thinking," Anne walked deliberately across the lobby floor, "when could it have happened?  You've barely let April out of your sight, and you haven't let her out of your sight at all after nightfall; no vampires have been invited into your house, so when could she have been sired?"

"Apes…"  Dee almost whispered the name, as if repeating it could draw upon whatever humanity her sister had left, resurrecting her from the demon which now stood before her.

"Your track record really hasn't improved much, Dee, you know that?"  Anne nodded at the new Vampire still standing just between them, "First your father, now April.  You're running out of family."

Dee lashed out, bringing the stake in her left hand hard at the center of Anne's chest.  Anne sidestepped it easily.

The back of a cold fist slammed into the bridge of Dee's nose, knocking her backwards.  It took her a moment to realize that it hadn't been Anne who had struck.

It was April.  April defending Anne.

"Down, girl," Anne raised a hand, pushing April back.  "We wouldn't want big sis staking you, now would we?"

Dee stared up at the pair of Vampires, still trying to reconcile the image she saw before her with what she knew to be true.

"What do you say, Slayer, round two?"

Dee pulled herself to her feet, knowing that she had only one course of action available to her.

She ran.

The door opened for her, allowing her to exit.  She ran until she reached her car parked on the corner.  She drove the car as hard as she could, hoping that the angry growl of the engine would silence Anne's laughter as she watched the Slayer flee.

She ran.

********

Dee drove fist after fist hard into the heavy punching bag, oblivious to the aches in her knuckles as the hard leather bag groaned with each impact.

_April's a Vampire._

She'd promised April that she'd take care of her, and she'd come up woefully lacking.  Adding insult to injury, she couldn't even avenge April by taking it out on Anne.  She'd been beaten, badly.  For the first time she could remember, she'd actually had to run away from a fight.

She'd been laying into the heavy bag for nearly an hour now.  Her kicks and punches had become steadily more powerful, more brutal.  She ignored the cries of her aching limbs as they demanded her attention.  Physical pain was the easy kind.

She felt, more than she heard someone step silently up behind her.  What she didn't want at the moment was to be bothered.  She swung around hard, her right fist balled, her hips snapping in a punch which would render just about anybody unconscious; and, if she was lucky, knock a tooth or two out.

Instead, her fist whistled uselessly through empty air as the person behind her simply ducked under the punch.

She straightened up, tugging at the hem of her short jacket as she drew herself to her full height and Dee finally got a good look at her.  She looked to be in her mid- to late thirties and her short blond hair hung freely over her shoulders.  Her eyes looked about twenty years older than the rest of her; as if she'd been forced to grow up long before her time.

"Fine, thanks.  How are you?"

"Whoever you are, this isn't the time, okay?"  Dee turned around and prepared herself to start beating the punching bag senseless.

"No, I imagine it isn't.  Who is that?"

"Who?"

"The punching bag.  Who are you trying to beat up?"

"Look, whoever the hell you are…"

"Is it Anne, April," the diminutive blonde paused for a moment as she brought her eyes to rest on the Slayer's, "or yourself?"

"Who the hell are you?"

"Anne didn't keep her side of the deal, did she?"  The woman's voice was aggravatingly calm.

"What deal?"

"The deal where you go out every night killing vampires, but don't let it get personal.  The deal where it's just part of the job, nothing against who the vampire was when they were human.  The deal where you step away from your feelings long enough to drive a stake through the Vampire's heart."

"Look…"

"Anne made it personal, didn't she?"  The small blonde cut her off.

"That's really none of your God-damned…"

"No, you're right.  It's none of my God-damned business.  You are."

"I am?  You don't even know me," her eyes narrowed at the tiny woman, "and, frankly, I have no problems keeping it that way."  She turned back to the punching bag.

"No, you're right, I don't know you; but I think you'd be surprised at what I know of you."

"And how, exactly, do you know of me?"

"You have the blood of a Slayer in your veins.  It would surprise you what that alone tells me."  At Dee's silence, she continued, "you've been dumped into one of the greatest wars humanity has ever fought, and nobody knows about it.  You're forced to protect billions who will never know they're being protected.  It means that you, with others, are forced to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.  And it also means that you're fairly certain that you won't live to see forty.  It means that in spite of the fact that you suddenly find yourself with these really cool powers, you're lonelier than you've ever felt in your life.  April took some of that loneliness away didn't she?"

"My blood tells you all that?"

The blonde smiled, as if thinking back to a pleasant memory, and as if she didn't have many of them, "a vampire I once knew said that blood is life.  It's what makes you warm, what makes you other than dead.  It's the driving force behind every slayer.  And it's what gives you your power."  She looked sad for a moment, "It's also what keeps you alone.  No matter who you have with you, who you have helping you through the rough patches, in the end, you fight alone."

"You're a slayer."  Dee nodded as realization dawned on her.

"Well, for a while, I was actually _the_ slayer."  There was no pride in the Slayer's voice.  It was merely a statement of fact.  "Now, I'm just _a_ slayer."

Dee took a step backwards, "Buffy."

"I guess my reputation precedes me."  Off Dee's look, she looked down at herself, "not what you expected?"

"I, uh, actually thought you'd be taller."

"Well, you're not exactly about to be diagnosed with Gigantism yourself."  She arched her eyebrows.

"No, I suppose not."  Dee stood only a couple of inches taller than the blonde.

"Look, I can't give you any answers.  Only questions."

"How do I kill Osiris?"  Dee demanded.

"And already you're asking the wrong ones."

"What?"

"The real question isn't how you kill him, what you should be asking is 'how far are you willing to go to kill him?'"

"I don't understand."

"Will you kill April if it means that Osiris would be gone forever?"

"April's dead."  Dee pointed out.

"Dead, not gone.  She'll look like April.  She'll talk like April.  She'll even act like April.  Will you be ready to destroy that, even if it's only an illusion?"

Dee shook her head.  "No," she admitted.

"Then you'd better change your way of thinking, or you're gonna lose."

Dee was silent.

"Maybe you can't kill Osiris, maybe you can.  I really don't know.  I _do_ know that if you're not willing to go all the way on this, there's no possible way you can defeat him."

"I'm not going to kill my sister."

"You just said that she was already dead.  I had to make that same choice once for my little sister.  I found a way around it, but I had to be willing to make that choice."

"So what do I do?"

"You do what you were chosen for."

"And what's that?"

"To show that it was the right choice."

********

"So, what do you think?"  Oz looked levelly at the small blonde as she sat across his desk, her face betraying her depth in thought.

"She's Faith," she said, sadly.

Oz shook his head, "She's Dee.  She isn't being corrupted by the power she has, she's being destroyed by a power she doesn't want."  He looked deeply into her eyes, "in fact, I think you're probably going to find that she has a lot more in common with you than she has—" he stopped, correcting himself, "would have had with Faith."

"She is _not_ me," Buffy insisted, indignant.

Oz nodded, "no, she isn't.  She's not you.  She's not Faith.  She's Dee, and she's run out of things to lose."

"Well, then she'd better find something to fight for."

"Help us," Oz pleaded, "Help Dee."

"I can't."

"You're kidding, right?"  Oz was incredulous, "You've saved the world, how many times?  You're balking now?"

"Oz, you have no clue how big this is, do you?"

"Tell me."

"Slayers have been dropping all over the world like flies.  They've been facing garden-variety vampires, but garden-variety vampires with the same training as a Slayer.  Garden-variety vampires so well-trained that they practically know what move any one of our slayers is going to make long before they make it.  In the last year alone, we've lost twenty.  Osiris has minions positioned at every known hellmouth on earth, and our slayers are spread horribly thin just trying to keep the war from boiling over on to innocent victims.  If Dee can't stop this, our best projections are that it's a matter of days before the world becomes exactly the type of place you read about in all the most unpleasant parts of the Bible."

"So, make sure that she can stop this," Oz pressed, "stay."

"I can't."  Buffy paused for a moment, "I'm not supposed to."

"'Not supposed to?'"  Oz actually did a fairly reasonable facsimile of her voice, "what are you talking about?"

"Osiris has orchestrated the deaths of at least twenty slayers, from as much as half a world away."  She let that sink in for a moment, "but he lets Dee prance right into his compound, barely lifting a finger to stop her?"

Oz was silent.

"He wants Dee for some reason, and he can and will kill anyone or anything that walks into that compound with her.  Whatever she'll face in there, she'll face it alone.  Osiris will make sure of that."

Oz let his eyes drop to the empty surface of his desk for a moment, then he looked back up at _the_ slayer, "she's not ready to face something like this."

Buffy shook her head, "nobody ever is."

********

"Osiris was described in Ancient Egypt as the God of the dead."  Anders fingers traced over an ancient stone tablet, struggling to translate the ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs.

"What, exactly, is all this?"  Dee gestured at a stack of large, flat stones lying on the floor of Anders' office.

"Watcher's journal.  I had Giles send it to me from Cleveland."  Anders explained, "what do you think we did before paper came around?"

"Don't look at me, I didn't even know you kept a journal."  Dee shrugged.

Anders was struck dumb by her unexpected answer.

"So, what makes this journal so special?"  Dee asked.

"The Slayer he was watching.  She's the one who last faced Osiris, and sealed his powers for five thousand years."

"So, why's he back now?"

"I guess he spent that time becoming powerful enough to break free of whatever had him sealed up."  Anders said.

"So, how'd she beat him?"

"It doesn't say."

"_What!?_"  Dee was livid, "They didn't think that little tidbit of information was important?"

"No.  The watcher didn't know."

"Didn't know?  Wouldn't the Slayer have told…"  She stopped, cold realization spreading over her, gripping her heart in an icy fist.

"She didn't make it."  Anders gave voice to the thought that she couldn't.  "She died within two months of being chosen, but she managed to stop him."  He paused for a moment, "she died in the fight," he added, unnecessarily.

"Oh my God."  Dee had always known that the cold reality of being a Slayer meant that she was statistically unlikely to see her thirtieth birthday; which, considering that that was only four years off, probably should have concerned her a little more than it did.

She was actually rather surprised to find that it didn't concern her at all.  Being dead really didn't scare her much anymore.

The idea of having something kill her, however, pissed her off beyond any measurable quantity.

"But at least now we know he _can_ be stopped.  That's something."  Anders added, quickly.

"'Something!?'"  Dee spat at him, "My sister's a Vampire, an ex-Slayer wants me dead, and an ancient Egyptian God is about to end the world."  She paused, catching her breath, "But, great news: he _can_ be stopped.  That's _something._"

"Dee…"

"No, I don't remember ever wanting this job."  Dee cut him off.

"No, but now you have it, and like it or not you're stuck with it."  Anders stood, his voice hardening, "and I have the distinct suspicion that you were _meant_ to have this job.  Am I alone thinking along these lines?"

It took a long time for Dee to answer, "No."

"Look, Dee," Anders visibly cooled off, "I know you got dumped into this, but it's your place now.  It's where you belong."

"I never wanted to belong here."  Dee shook her head as she sunk into the chair across from Anders desk.

Anders paused, selecting his words carefully, "Dee, in the last thirteen years, I've met probably two hundred girls who had a Slayer's powers.  All of them had the strength, speed and training of a Slayer.  Of those two hundred, maybe a dozen were Slayers.  And one of those was you."

Dee looked at him, not understanding.

"The strength of a Slayer isn't in her arms," Anders clenched a fist in front of him for emphasis.  Then he pressed it against the center of his chest, "it's here."  He looked at her, seeing his message sink in, "learn to use that; the fire, the passion; that's what's going to beat Anne.  That's what will push back Osiris."

"How do I use that?"

Anders smiled, "you'll know.  When the time comes, you'll know.  It's in your blood."

Dee looked down at her hands, deep in contemplation.

"Now, I need to ask you, are you certain you never saw April sired?"  Anders looked at her.

"Positive.  She hasn't been within an arm's reach of a Vampire since that one bit her on my doorstep."

"He didn't sire her?"

"Considering that we were sunbathing on the roof the next day, I'd say it's unlikely."

"And the Vampires you say were holding her when you were fighting Anne last night neither of them…?"

Dee shook her head, "No bite marks.  I checked."

Anders brow furrowed, "How long ago was the attack on your doorstep?"

Dee shrugged, "About three months, why?"

"Three months."

"What is it?"  Dee demanded.

Anders ran his fingers over the stone tablet, "There's something in here about something called the 'ritual of the damned.'"

"What is it?"

"Something about having a Vampire marked with a special symbol bite someone on the full moon, then on the night of the full moon, the person is made to stand over something called the 'throne of Osiris,' and their soul is drawn into the vessel, and they become as those who walk the night."  Anders voice was broken as he struggled to decipher the text.

"Can he do that?"

"He's the God of the dead.  I imagine where dead people are concerned, he can do as he damned well pleases."  Anders shook his head, "never mind, it doesn't apply."

"Why not?"

"It says here that the Vampire who bites must be killed in a moment of contemptible darkness.  He must be killed in a moment of evil greater than the Vampire itself.  You just slayed him, that isn't in and of itself evil, so it has to be…"  His voice trailed off as he saw the look of shocked horror on Dee's face.  "Oh, no."  His body shivered as the realization spread over him.

"I didn't just slay him," Dee whispered, "I didn't want him to die, I wanted him to suffer.  He had hurt my sister and he deserved to die writhing and in pain.  I didn't stake him, I could have, so many times."

"Dee…"

"I didn't stake him," she went on quietly, "I could have, but I didn't.  I stuck a knife in each of his major organs one by one, knowing that it couldn't kill him, only hurt him.  There was a stake lying no more than a foot from my right foot, and another tucked into my belt, but I didn't even try to reach for either one.  I had so many chances just to end it, but I didn't.  Instead I came up with the slowest, most painful way I could think of at the time to slay him.  I pinned one of his arms to the asphalt with a dagger, I stood on the other, and I dropped the silver cross I always carry around my neck into the center of his chest."

"Dee…"

"I let it burn right through him, straight into his heart.  I stood on him, listening to his screams, watching him kick out, trying to shake the little silver cross on his chest, and I didn't do anything.  I stood there, letting him scream and kick and beg, and I didn't do anything to stop it."

"Dee, don't blame…"

"I did it," she whispered, "I killed April."


	11. Endgame

Disclaimer:  Still not mine.  Just having a little fun with the universe.

Chapter 10

"Dee," Anders started.

"What?"  Anders could almost hear icicles forming on her words as she whirled around to glare at him, "Anne has April, I turned my sister into a vampire and an ex-God wants to destroy the world.  Exactly what do you have to say that can make that all better?"

Anders let his head drop, knowing that there wasn't a damned thing he _could_ say.  "Nothing.  I can't say anything," he admitted, "but you have to keep fighting."

"Why?"

"How about because if you don't, we're looking at the end of the world as we know it?"

Dee spun back to face the door, "wrong argument, Anders.  If you're going to send someone to save the world, it's a good idea to make sure that they care if it's saved."  She took a step towards the door.

"Well, if you don't care about the world, how about April?"

Dee stopped.  "Newsflash, Anders.  She's dead."

"What if she weren't?"

"She is."  She spun around to face him.

"Are you sure about that?"

"The long fangs were a dead giveaway."

"I'm not so sure about that."  Anders told her.

"Anders, you have five seconds to explain yourself before I beat the explanation out of you."  She stalked up to him, standing imposingly before his desk, "and you _know_ I'll do it," she added menacingly.

"Everything we know about Vampires, everything that has ever been written about them says that the person being sired has to choose the unlife."

"So?"

"April didn't choose."

"Not to point out the gaping flaw in your logic or anything, but regardless of whether she chose, she's a little too fangy to be of the living," Dee pointed out.

"Maybe not," Anders pressed, "what if she's not a real Vampire?"

"Um, fangs?"

"No, I mean, what if she looks and acts like a Vampire, but really isn't?"  Anders pushed through her objections, "this isn't something she chose, this is something she was forced into."

"So what?"

"So, maybe we can force her back."

"How, exactly?"

"I don't know.  It talks about drawing the soul into a vessel of some kind.  Now, according to everything we know about souls, it _wants_ to go back to be a part of April.  That changes a little if the person getting the soul is dead, it has to be forced back into the body.  But if April's not really dead, then her freed soul should want back into her body."

"So I break a jar and my sister's all better?"

"Well, it's probably not that simple, but basically, yeah."

"So, all I need to do is coax Anne into telling me where she's stashed my sister's soul, and free it."  Dee muttered sarcastically.

"You may not even have to do that."

"So, how exactly am I supposed to know where it is?"

"Talk to Oz."

"Oz?"

"Yeah.  His ex-girlfriend has some experience in locating wayward souls."

********

"Willow Rosenberg."

"Hi, Will."

It took a moment before Willow spoke again.  Unsurprising, since she'd had practically no contact with him since she'd asked him to set up a base of operations on the San Diego hellmouth, almost thirteen years ago.  "Oz?"

"Yeah."

"How…"  She paused a moment, "Why are you calling?"

"I need help.  Your help," he added.

"Mine?"

"I need you to find a soul for me."

"Did Angel…"

"No, not this time.  I need you to find my Slayer's sister."

"Oz, we're about to face Armageddon, here.  I can't exactly go looking for missing persons right now.  Can it wait until the war's over, assuming we win?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"'cause my Slayer's the one who's standing on the front line of that Armageddon you're talking about."

There was a long silence on the line, "Oh my God," Willow whispered, "You're in San Diego?"

"You put me here."

"I'd forgotten."  She whispered, "Or I-I thought you'd moved.  I'm not sure which."

"The last Slayer in San Diego got turned, and she's grabbed April's soul.  I think she's planning on using it as a bargaining chip.  'Join us and I'll give your sister her soul back' type of thing."  Oz explained.

"Sounds familiar."

"I don't know if she can push back Osiris, even if April's freed.  But I can guarantee you that she won't be able to if there isn't at least a chance to rescue her."

"I'll do it."

"Can you?  I mean, do you need something of April's to connect to her or something?"

"A possession will only connect me to her body, not her spirit."  Willow explained, "But I'm already connected to the souls of all the Slayers in the world, which means that I'm connected to your slayer's sister.  Sisters, brothers, they share a part of each other's souls."

"Thank you."

"What's her name?"

"Deena Chlopan."  He told her.

"And the sister?"

"April."

"I'll cast a basic locator."

"How will we know when it works?"

"You'll know."  He couldn't help but marvel at the seemingly sudden increase in confidence she had since he'd known her back in High School.

"Will, thank you."  The words seemed so inadequate.  The kind of words you'd use for someone who'd opened the door for you.

"Oz?"

"Yeah?"

"If it gets really bad…"

"It will get really bad."  Oz interrupted.

"But if your Slayer can't stop it, will you promise me to get out of town?"

Oz shook his head automatically, realizing that she couldn't actually see him.  "If Dee can't stop this, getting out of town won't make any difference."

"Just… be careful."

"How's Kennedy?"

"She's okay, but the fight's getting harder.  We've got an army of Slayers put together, and we're going to try to make our stand at Fort Calgary.  If we can stop them from pushing as far as the Husky Oil Tower long enough, it may give your Slayer the time to end this."

"Calgary.  A little more chilly than you're used to, isn't it?"

He could almost hear her smile over the phone line, "I miss Rio," she told him, "but Kenn and I are needed here."

"Take care of yourself."

"You too."

"And Will?"

"Yeah?"

"It's good to hear from you again."

********

"How long?"  Dee didn't need to specify until what.

"Tonight.  The first hellmouth which'll have nightfall after us will be the one in Calgary.  He'll probably strike that one first.  From there, he'll stage strikes progressively farther east until he has control of every known hellmouth on earth, plus a few we probably don't know about."

"You're sure it'll be tonight?"

Anders nodded, "every watcher on earth is announcing an army of Vampires converging on their respective hellmouths."  He told her, "not one of them expects to still be alive this time tomorrow."

"So it's a war."  It was a completely rhetorical statement.

"It's a war.  Osiris has put an army of Vampires at every hellmouth, preparing to take control of them one by one; with the notable exception of the hellmouth here.  He already has that one, all he needs is a large enough force to defend it.  Frankly, he isn't expecting to have to defend it much."

"Well, it's very likely that he won't."

"What?"

"C'mon, Anders, what kind of a chance do you give me?  Me, I'd say one chance in four; and that's me being optimistic."

"That doesn't matter."  Anders shook his head.

"'Doesn't matter?'"  Dee arched her eyebrows, "I'd say whether or not I can beat him is pretty unmoot."

"It's not important.  It's not about winning or losing.  It's about the fight, not about the outcome."

Dee was silent for a moment, taking that in.

"If this is to be Humanity's last hurrah," Anders said, "at least we'll be able to say we went out fighting."

"How much time do I have?"

Anders checked his watch.  Four p.m.

"Calgary's an ahead of us, but nightfall is somewhat earlier this time of year.  Count on about two hours, at the most.  In twenty-four hours, he'll have control of every hellmouth.  Within thirty-six, we're looking at a fifty-percent eradication of all humankind.  He'll make Hitler look like a poodle."

Oz burst into the room, "Willow's on it.  She said you'll know where to look for your sister's soul."

"Did she say how?"

"Nope, but I'm guessing a light show of some kind will be involved.  She said you'd know it when you saw it."

"How about Osiris, where is he?"  Dee turned to Anders.

"My money is on him being in that same building."  Anders told her.  "To perform the ritual, April had to be standing over what they call the 'throne of Osiris.'"  He looked at her, "you must have been standing within spitting distance of his seat of power."

"So all I have to do is get in, free my sister and kill Osiris.  One more miracle and I'm eligible for Sainthood," Dee commented, wryly.

"Dee, just stay calm, hold yourself together, you can beat this.  It's what you were called for."

"Don't worry, Anders."  Dee pressed her lips together, "one way or another, it ends tonight."

Dee turned around and walked to the door.

Anders let his shoulders slump.  He felt spent.  He knew there was a chance that they could win this, but he didn't think it was a particularly good chance.  The probability was that he, Dee, April, all the slayers worldwide, for that matter, every human being on earth was facing death within the next week.

"So, what now?"  Oz lowered himself into the chair across Anders' desk.

"Now," Anders took a deep breath, "we wait."

********

Dee knew that she was expected to when she walked up the stairs to the building she'd broken into only the night before.  Whatever was happening, this was how Anne wanted it to pan out, and at the moment, she had no choice but to go along with it.  There was no point in trying to sneak in; there was no entrance that Anne wouldn't have monitored.

She pushed the glass front door opened, unsurprised to find it unlocked.

She was, however, surprised to find the lobby deserted and dark.  The sun had set a little over a half-hour before; it was perfectly safe inside the lobby, even with the glass-fronted building.

"C'mon, Anne," she muttered, not expecting an answer, "enough games."

An answer came anyway, "Come on, Dee.  All life's a game.  You know that."  Anne's voice rang playfully over the P.A. system.

"So what are we playing?"

"I've always been a fan of chess, myself."  Anne's voice became somewhat more serious, "how about you?"

"I used to beat up kids on the chess club," Dee stepped carefully towards the center of the lobby, pulling a single stake out from behind her back, "how about 'Twister?'"

"Not enough strategy for my liking," Anne's disembodied voice replied, "I like the thrill of pushing my opponent in one direction until she has no choice but to do exactly as I want her to do."

"You see yourself as an Undead Bobby Fischer?"

"Bobby Fischer, no.  But that's not a bad analogy.  They say that Bobby Fischer can picture the board twenty moves deep.  That's longer than some of his games last.  So a whole game could be played before he moves a single piece."

"So what?"

"The game here; the van on the highway, the strike on your doorstep, April; all of that was pieced together months ago.  Now, look at you here, exactly where I wanted you."  Anne's voice became hard, wicked, "welcome to the endgame."

"You think you've got me trapped?  Is that why you're talking to me through an intercom?"

"No, I'm talking to you through an intercom because I don't want to fight you there."

"You think I care where you want to fight me?"

"I'm going to do you a favor.  I'm going to take you straight to me; and to Osiris."

"What if I decide to stay here?"

"Fine.  See you in the new world.  It should be here in about twenty-four hours."

Dee let her breath out slowly, knowing that, for the moment, she didn't have a choice.  Either way, the world was probably going to end, but she didn't like the idea of sitting down and watching it happen.  "Where do I go?"

A light came on at the far end of the lobby, illuminating a hallway.  "Just follow the lights.  If it gets dark wherever you are, you're going in the wrong direction."

********

_Calgary__, __Alberta_

Harini's grip on the wooden staff in her hands tightened.  The cold November wind cut through her jacket like a knife.  _If you're living somewhere where the weather man knows that -40 degrees is where Fahrenheit and Celsius are the same thing, you're living in the wrong place._  She'd grown up in Madras, near the southern tip of India.  She'd been chosen at the age of eighteen, and now at 31, she was quite possibly one of the oldest Slayers alive.  Willow had tracked her down within a couple of weeks and had taken her in to be trained.  She'd been sent to Calgary shortly after she turned twenty-four and had been there ever since.

She'd never got used to the cold, though.

Weathermen in Calgary had the easiest job in the universe.  The weather was so unpredictable that they could say just about anything on any given day and there was a pretty reasonable chance that it would happen.  Furthermore, if they were wrong, nobody would hold it against them since, hey, it was Calgary.  The temperature could, and had, oscillated between thirty below and seventy above in the space of a week.  Snowing one day was very little assurance that it wouldn't rain the following one.  Their most major snowfall of the last year had happened in July.  The sun had just dipped below the horizon.  It wouldn't be long now.

Her weapon of choice was a wooden staff with the ends sharpened.  Good for both defense and offence, it also had a longer reach than most Vampires possessed.  As long as concealment was not an issue, it was probably one of the most effective weapons available.

About twenty feet away, Kennedy stood, feeling the familiar weight of a large axe in her hands.  There was an eerie familiarity about this, as if she'd done this before.  Trying to hold an army of vampires at bay long enough for one person to make a difference.  But for some reason, it felt different this time.  Perhaps because she wasn't playing the central role in this fight.  She was the second front.  Even Willow, arguably the most powerful human being on earth, had had her role reduced to a common grunt.  Their fate, whatever it was, would lie in the hands of a single slayer that nobody had really known about a year ago.

Willow stood behind her, muttering an incantation.  Her ex had given her a call that afternoon.  Willow hadn't told her exactly what he wanted, but if it was important enough for him to call her the night of an apocalypse after practically ignoring her for thirteen years, it was probably pretty important.

"There they are," she heard someone on her right shout.  They'd lined up in front of Fort Calgary, hoping to hold back the onslaught there.  The Vampires had nested a few miles out of town and would be coming straight through here on their way to the Hellmouth.  They'd chosen this place to make their stand.

"Oh, goddess."  Willow's voice, soft, drifted over to her as she saw the size of the invading force.  It was impossible to count them all.  Thousands…. Tens of thousands….  Maybe hundreds of thousands.

And they were all ready to kill.

********

Anne's trail ended at a door in the basement.  The dim lights over her head flickered ominously, as if in fear of whatever lay on the other side of that door.

"Stopping already, Dee?"  Anne's voice again sounded over the intercom.  "Scared?"

"No, just contemplating the fact that you really need to learn to shut up."

Dee reared back and kicked the door opened, knocking it cleanly off its hinges, sending it, twisted and bent into the room beyond.  She automatically squinted and turned her head away as bright light poured through the door.

As her eyes adjusted to the light, she could see two figures standing, silhouetted about twenty feet away.  Anne and April.

Dee stepped into the room.

It was gigantic.  The ceiling stretched a minimum of forty feet above her head.  Even in the bright light, she couldn't see the far end of the room clearly.  In the center was what looked like a pool, out of which painful white light poured.

"Dee."  Anne smiled, then nodded at the pool, "Meet Osiris."

********

_Calgary__, __Alberta_

The Slayers charged.  Harini swung around and jabbed at the nearest Vampire.  He twisted smoothly out of the way, kicking her brutally in the chest.

"These are just everyday Vampires," Kennedy told herself as she smoothly ran towards the fray, "We've held our ground against ubervamps.  What can these guys possibly have on us?"

She watched as a Harini stabbed again at the vampire, who dodged the blow easily; as if he knew exactly what she was going to do.  He kicked out, knocking the staff free from her grip, then twisted it around slamming one of the pointed ends neatly into the center of Harini's chest.  The slayer fell backwards, the long staff pointing unwaveringly, unmoving at the cold, black sky.  Her face was frozen in an expression of shock, unbelieving that she had been so easily defeated.

Kennedy looked down at her sister Slayer, as if she could will her to start breathing again.

"Oh, shit."


	12. War

Disclaimer: I don't own any of this.  Joss Whedon does.  I'm just toying around with it for a little while.

Chapter 11:

_Calgary__, __Alberta__._

Kennedy swung the axe diagonally downwards across the Vampire's torso.  The vampire stepped inside her swing, bringing his forearm up to catch the handle of the axe, halting its downward motion.  He lashed out with a brutal kick that slammed unforgiving into her solar plexus, knocking the wind out of her.  She only barely managed to keep a grip on the axe and twist out of the way as he reached for her, trying to get a grip on her head.  She dropped to a kneeling position, her lungs burning as they tried to remember how to inflate again.  She swung the axe again, aiming for the soft tissue on his right side just below the ribcage.  It wouldn't be a lethal blow to a Vampire, but with a little luck it would slow him down somewhat.

She heard a loud _crack_ off to her right, like a large branch snapping.  She glanced over just in time to see a slayer a few feet away drop to the ground with all the grace of a marionette whose strings had been cut; her head twisted around so far that it almost looked as if it was on backwards.

In her moment of distraction, she received a brutal backhanded punch to the bridge of her nose, knocking her to the ground.

********

_San Diego__, __California__._

"It's over, Dee."  Dee could see Anne clearly now.  She stood confidently, her arms crossed in front of her.  "You know that you can't win this."

"If that's the case, why'd I even come?"

Anne shrugged, "You're the slayer.  You have to come."

"I'm not here for you, and I'm not here for the world.  I'm here to get my sister back."

"Fair enough."  Anne looked at the glowing pool behind her, "You join us, your sister gets her soul back, and you have my word that nobody will ever harm her."

"Not a bad offer, but I have a better one."

"Oh, do tell."

"You let my sister go, I seriously consider letting you live."

"Well, I sincerely hope you won't be too dismayed if I decline."  Anne told her, bringing her demon forth, "you can't take me."

"You really think that?"  Dee launched a punch at the Vampire's floating rib.  Anne blocked it effortlessly, and delivered a high snap-kick to the side of the Slayer's head.

Dee stumbled for a moment, stars floating in front of her eyes.

"Yeah, I do."

********

_Calgary__, __Alberta__._

Willow felt the spell take effect, almost before she finished her incantation.  The spell itself was almost useless anyway.  She didn't need to speak the words to make the magic, it was purely a tool to allow her to focus.  Apparently, you had to concentrate harder when you were speaking in Latin.

The farther you were from the place your spell would have an effect, generally, the longer it took to have an effect.  With the better part of a continent between her and San Diego, it would be a couple of minutes before the slayer there saw anything happen.

Now, it was out of her hands.

She looked up.  Kennedy was down, a Vampire standing over her, ready to snap her neck cleanly.

"_Aduro_" A column of fire shot from her hand, flying over the prone slayer, lighting the Vampire that stood over her.

He burst into flames, finally exploding in a cloud of glowing embers.

_One down, how many thousands to go?_

Kennedy kipped up, bringing her axe up, ready to attack.

********

_San Diego__, __California__._

_C'mon, __Dee__, hold yourself together_.  Dee could feel the anger bubbling within her.  She wanted so badly to lash out at anything moving within ten feet of her, but that wouldn't help April.  She had to control herself.

There were stories of the Berserkers of the ancient Vikings.  Those who would work themselves into a rage before battle, and strike indiscriminately.  They would fight even when grievously injured, and would attack friend or foe alike.  Generally not a desirable trait in a Slayer.

Anders had called her a berserker on occasion, and to some degree, the analogy was probably apt.  There had been occasions when she'd struck with nothing more than rage driving her forward, she'd struck indiscriminately and with little consideration for her own safety.  But even on the occasions when she'd seemed to lose control, she'd been holding something back.  As if she was afraid to let that part of herself loose.

_Just hold yourself together, __Dee__._

She'd lost count of the number of hours Anders had spent with her in meditation, trying to get her to control her more animalistic tendencies.  To bring order to chaos, as it were.

She flowed through the motions effortlessly, doing some of the best sparring she'd ever done.  She wasn't fighting badly.

She was just getting beaten.

It was as if every move she'd done to that point, Anne had seen coming long before.  Almost as if she'd played this exact fight out in her mind and knew exactly what moves she needed to make to counter the Slayer's.

Out of the corner of her eye, Dee could see April standing, her arms crossed in front of her, a small smile playing on her lips as she watched her older sister get brutally pummeled by her alter-ego.  Dee would only barely be able to deflect one blow when a second she hadn't even seen coming slammed, undefended, into her.

********

_Calgary__, __Alberta__._

Kennedy slammed a wooden stake into the center of a Vampire's chest, then spun around smoothly separating the next vampire's head from his neck.  These guys were good.  They didn't have the unthinking drive or the strength that the ubervamps had had all those years ago, but they made up for it in skill.  These were, hands down, the most skilled vampires she'd ever faced.  And she'd faced a lot of vampires.  She'd faced them in Rio, she'd held them at bay here.  Now she was learning just how bad a normal-everyday vampire could be.

Behind her, Willow muttered another incantation, and a ball of fire erupted about twenty feet in front of Kennedy.  She may as well have been trying to relocate the Pacific Ocean with a thimble.  It destroyed every vampire in a ten foot radius, but it barely even slowed down the rest.

_Oz, whatever your Slayer's about to do, she'd better do it fast._

********

_San Diego__, __California__._

Anne's fist slammed into the Slayer's stomach, doubling her over as she followed it with a backhanded strike across her right temple, just behind her right eye.  Dee knew that she would be treated to a nasty black eye the next morning.

Assuming, of course, that she lived that long.

Anne, on the other hand was still cocky, confident.  So far, the Slayer hadn't managed to land a single blow.

Anne had spoken to her about seeing a chess board twenty moves deep, now she was proving it.  Dee had yet to launch an attack or combination of attacks that she hadn't somehow known was coming.

"C'mon, Dee.  You know you can't win this."  Anne didn't even sound out of breath.

Which, considering that she lacked breath to be out of, was unsurprising.

"I've beaten you once."

"You think you're going to extend that record?"

"I can try."  Dee threw a feint with her right that Anne ducked easily.  She followed with a hook kick aimed at the Vampire's right temple.  Anne simply dropped to the ground, scissoring her legs around the Slayer's, dropping her ungracefully to the ground.

Dee's lungs emptied in a rush as she slammed facefirst to the hard concrete floor.  She was getting beaten.  Pure and simple.  Anne was beating her.

Part of her just wanted to give up.  Let it end.  What chance did she have against Osiris anyway?  If the world was gonna end anyway, at least she could say that she'd tried to save it.

"Give up?"

Dee didn't even feel like she had the energy to respond.

Anne smiled, "Good."

The next thing Dee felt was a pair of fangs sinking deeply into her right shoulder.

********

_Calgary__, __Alberta__._

Willow didn't know how many slayers she'd seen fall.  With each one, she felt her spirit pass as the unstoppable behemoths forced the Slayers to give them ground.  She watched, disheartened as the Vampires managed to slowly push the army of Slayers back.  They just didn't have the numbers to hold them back.

She muttered another incantation, a wall of flame shot skyward, forcing vampire and slayer alike to recoil from the searing flames.  Even as she did it, she knew it wouldn't be enough.  It would hold them back for a while, but not for long.  They would find their way around it.

But it would buy them time.

She just hoped it would be enough.


	13. Chaos

Disclaimer:  Still not mine.  I really, really wish I were creative enough to think up a universe like the one Joss Whedon came up with, but I'm not.  I really, really, really, wish I could make money off of this, but I can't, so this remains a purely creative exercise.

Chapter 12:

It's funny what can happen to the human brain as it is slowly deprived of oxygen and nutrients.  Those that have come back from the proverbial brink have reported seeing memories from years past, or even from the last few weeks as though they were re-living them.

_What are you?_

April's voice from all those days ago, when she'd first arrived in San Diego, echoed in her mind.

_I'm the slayer._  She heard herself respond.  Though she was uncertain why she was responding to a memory.

_Don't lie to me._  That was April's voice again.  In her mind, she could see her sister holding the knife to her throat.

_I'm not.  I'm the Slayer._

_Dee__, what happened to you tonight?_  The scene in her mind changed.  Now she saw her sister, wincing in pain as she worked to patch up the bite marks on her neck that first night after the vampire had attacked them on her doorstep.

_She's just too strong._

_Don't lie to me._

Dee paused before she answered, _I… gave up._

_Dee__ could never do something like that._  Her mind flashed back to her sister, holding the knife at her throat.

Dee didn't have an answer for that one.  Quitting really wasn't her style.

_So, what happens now?_  The scene changed to Oz's house.  April lay on the couch recovering from the knockout punch she'd received from Dee.

_Now, I die._

_This isn't just about you anymore, __Dee__._  Now Oz's voice took over.  She found herself seated across his desk as she informed him that she was taking the fight to Anne.  That assault on this very facility had ended disastrously.

_So?__  It's not like humanity hasn't had one hell of a run._

_What about April?_  Oz's voice again rang in her mind.

_You keep her out of this._

_The slayer shows her fangs._  The scene again shifted.  Anne stood before her, taunting her, challenging her.

_I know what you're trying to do, okay?  It's not going to work.  They've won, I've lost.  It's that simple._

_The fire, the passion, that's what's going to beat Anne._  Anders sat before her, pleading with her to fight the good fight.

Then, as abruptly as the images started, they ended, and she found herself lying on the cold concrete floor, and could feel Anne slowly draining the blood from the carotid artery in her neck.

Without her realizing it, her fist slammed upwards, catching Anne under the chin.  Her fangs tore free from her neck, spraying a rain of arterial blood down on the Slayer.  As the Vampire recovered from it, she slammed another punch across the Vampire's jaw, driving her back.

Slowly, as if the mere act of standing took an immense effort, she stood facing the Slayer Vampire and brought her fingers to her neck.  It wasn't bleeding badly, thanks largely to Slayer healing, but the bright red blood stood out like a beacon on her pale fingers.

As she looked down at the blood on her fingers, she knew.

_It's in your blood._  Anders voice rang out in the back of her mind.

The role of the berserker wasn't undesirable in a Slayer.

It was vital.

And in that instant, she looked deep into herself, looking deeply into the darkness of her soul, at the monster she knew was always there, and for the first time ever, she made peace with it.

She stared the monster within her in the eyes, and for the first time, turned it loose.  She cut every leash and released every bit of self-control she had.  In an instant, she transformed from a cool, reserved warrior to little more than an animal.

For there was one thing, only one, that Anne could not possibly predict, could not plan for and could not form a strategy around.

Chaos.

Pure, uncontrolled, unthinking chaos.

The very definition of unpredictability.

Anne had a perfectly logical reasoning mind.  She could out-think just about anyone, but she could no more reason her way around unpredictability than she could reason her way out of a hurricane.

With a loud, almost feral cry of rage, Dee launched herself at the Vampire.  Both feet connected in the center of Anne's chest driving her backwards.  She attempted, automatically, to deflect the blow, but attempting to redirect 120 pounds of very determined muscle flying through the air was an exercise in near futility.  The attack had caught her flat-footed, she couldn't twist out of the way in time.  Both women fell to the ground and were back on their feet almost instantly.  Dee struck with a backhanded punch at the Vampire's left cheekbone.  Anne easily came up to block it, but the sheer brute force of the blow was too great.  The strike broke through her guard almost effortlessly, slamming practically undefended against Anne's face.  The strength of a Slayer, combined with the rage of the woman who yielded it, flung the former slayer across the room to land in an undignified sprawl.

By the time Anne had risen to a crawling position, still reeling from the blow she'd received, she received Dee's left foot generously applied to her abdomen.  Not hard enough to lift her, likely by design as she immediately received Dee's right boot in the bridge of her nose with enough force to slam her back to the concrete, flat on her back.  Never in her years alive as a Slayer, nor in her years dead as a Vampire could Anne remember anything having hit her that hard.

Dee was only peripherally aware of a pair of arms wrapping around her from behind and knew without looking that it had to be April.  In front of her, she could see Anne trying to gather herself as Dee was, for the moment, helpless.

Dee curled her stomach, then erupted upwards slamming the back of her head brutally into the bridge of April's nose.  She felt April's grip slacken and stepped forward, bringing her right elbow back to impact the newly-injured bridge of her sister's nose.  She then snapped her right fist forward, slamming it directly into Anne's jaw.  Both Vampire stumbled away from the berserk slayer.  April's eyes clouded as they teared up; a fortunate side effect of a strike to the nose.  She stalked up to the reeling redheaded Vampire, who lashed out with a hard strike to Dee's left cheekbone.

It hurt.  But oddly enough the pain seemed distant.  It was as if her body had simply chosen to make no notice of it.  Dee swung around with the force of the blow, responding immediately with a backhanded strike across the Vampire's right cheek, followed by a left-handed punch in the same area.  The Slayer wasn't using the smooth fluid techniques she'd learned.  She was a whirlwind of punches and kicks.  Striking directly and brutally with a strength she'd never possessed before.

She spun around snapping her left heel across Anne's right cheekbone, sending her stumbling into the wall.

Before Anne could get her bearings, trying to get her abused limbs to respond, Dee was again atop her.  In an instant, she had a firm grip on Anne's red hair and pulled her forcefully away from the wall.  In pain and shock, Anne had no choice but to follow.  Dee drove her head, face first into the hard concrete wall.  Anne felt her whole body spasm with the impact, but she was helpless to prevent the insane Slayer from pulling her back and driving her again into the wall.

Dee felt something give under her hand with a loud _crack_.  She didn't know what it was, and she truly did not care.  She pulled Anne's face again away from the wall and slammed it again into the unyielding wall.  With each blow, she became more forceful, more brutal.

Finally, after more impacts than Anne retained the capacity to count, she felt herself pulled free of the wall and flung away with an effort in the same ballpark as would be reserved for the throwing away of used tissue paper.  She slammed to the ground and skidded, her limbs tangling and hanging limp around her.

Through vision clouded by blood, she saw the slayer, fury behind her eyes dropping down on her, a stake in her right hand poised to drive through the Vampire's heart.

In a single motion, she brought up her hand, gripping Dee's arm at the wrist, halting the stake a few inches shy of her breastbone.

"You're gonna kill me, Dee?"  The words were slurred, and almost seemed to bubble out of the Vampire's mouth as blood flowed freely from it.  Her ears were bleeding profusely.  The eyes looked directly into Dee's, but didn't seem to be focusing properly upon her.  Dee got the eerie feeling that Anne was looking through her, not at her.

"You kill me, your sister stays as she is."  Anne struggled to push the words out.

Dee was silent, her arm poised to punch a hole in the Vampire's still heart.

"You think you can live with that?"

Without responding Dee brought her left hand up in a palm strike at the Vampire's elbow.  It snapped cleanly, bending in exactly the opposite direction it was meant to.  Anne groaned in pain as the wooden stake slammed smoothly into the center of her chest.

As she felt her body crumble, and as each of her five senses shut off one by one, the last thing she heard was Dee's voice, stunningly calm.

"I'm learning to live with a lot of things."  She whispered.


	14. Destiny

Disclaimer:  Not mine, period.  I don't own the universe.  I don't own the characters.  Well, I guess Dee's pretty much mine, at least beyond the ten seconds of screen time that Mr. Whedon gave her in Chosen.  

Chapter 13:

_Calgary__, __Alberta__._

The wall of flame that Willow had erected was holding the Vampires back.  Barely.  She was quite possibly the most powerful sorcerer on Earth, but even her power had its limitations.  She could hold them at bay for a while, maybe even push them back a little, but she knew that she could not hold them back indefinitely.

Kennedy balanced lightly on the balls of her feet.  She'd never seen Vampires this well coordinated before.  Vampires were, almost as a rule, rather solitary types.  Certainly, you would run into a hive here and there, and they had their family structures, if you could call it that.  But by and large, they would allow their best friends to be dusted if they thought it would buy them enough time to make an escape.  Their splintered nature had always been what gave the Slayer an advantage.  Sure, the Slayer had the edge in speed, strength and skill, but the Vampires had the numbers.  Kennedy's had often said that if the Vampires had got their act together and decided as one that the Slayers needed to be destroyed, if they realized that they had to act as a team, there would be little the Slayers could do to stop them.

Kennedy hated being right.

In the last three minutes, she'd seen no fewer than six slayers dropped.  She'd heard that Slayers had been killed all over the planet over the last several months as well.  Apparently, there was something to be said for teamwork.

These Vampires moved almost as though they shared a single mind.  As if they were being coordinated by a single intelligence.  They teamed up in a way which was well above and beyond her ragtag team of Slayers.  The Vampires covered each other's backs, worked in well coordinated, controlled ways.  None of the unthinking rage she'd seen so often from so many demons and Vampires.  By contrast, her Slayers barely spoke the same language.

_Okay, slayer, work your magic,_ Kennedy silently encouraged the unknown Slayer.  _Now or never._

********

_San Diego__, __California__._

Dee didn't trust herself to move for a moment.  She sat, genuflecting on the cement floor, looking at the dust outline that had only moments ago been her nemesis, the wooden stake still clenched tightly in her hand exactly where it had penetrated the Vampire's heart.  It was odd, almost sad in a way, although that didn't seem to be the right word.  Anne had been a part of her life for what seemed like so long, it was as if she had a huge gap in her life now that she was gone.  She struggled to keep her breathing under control.  Her body shook uncontrollably as it recovered from the surge of adrenaline it had received only moments ago.  Every muscle in her body trembled and she shivered as though the temperature were much colder than it actually was.

She felt something moving behind her, and she swung around hard, bringing the stake in her hand to a stop, just short of April's breastbone.

"Don't."  She said simply.  April growled angrily, almost as if she were seriously considering attacking regardless.  "You think you can take me?"  She looked deep into April's demonic eyes.

April backed off, her yellow eyes fixed on Dee's.  The two sisters circled each other, as if waiting for the other to drop her guard.

Dee gently backed towards the radiant pool behind her.  Osiris, Anne had indicated, was there.

_How do I fight a pool of energy?_  She was the Slayer.  She beat up Demons.  Last time she checked, she was a pretty lousy swimmer.

She stood beside the circular pool, its bright light beating warmly against her skin.

_God help me, how do I fight this?_

_Osiris__ was described in ancient __Egypt__ as the God of the dead._  Anders voice drifted up in her mind.

_Blood is life._  Buffy's voice replaced Anders'.  _It's what gives you your power._

_The strength of a slayer isn't in her arms, _She could see Anders holding up a fist in front of her, then press it against his chest, _it's here._

_She died in the fight_.  Anders had told her of the last slayer to face Osiris.

Wait a minute, how?  Osiris had never taken an active role in all the time she'd been a Slayer.  He'd always acted through others.  He acted through Anne, through the Vampires, and demons.  Someone else had always acted for him.  How could a slayer defeat whatever line of defense Osiris had erected, defeat Osiris, _then_ die?

_Blood is life._

_Osiris__ was described in ancient __Egypt__ as the God of the dead._

_Blood is life._

_It's what gives you your power._

Dee looked down at the wooden stake in her hand, dried blood and dust hanging loosely on its ridges.  The traditional weapon of a Slayer.  Exactly the kind of weapon she'd used so many times to dispatch so many Vampires.

_Blood is life._

And in that instant, she knew.  She knew how to defeat Osiris, and why the last slayer who faced him had died in the battle.

Her eyes gently played over the immense, featureless chamber.  The light from the pool before her danced playfully over the gray concrete walls.  She closed her eyes a moment, savoring the feel of the air in her lungs; the sound of her heart beating smoothly, rhythmically in her chest; and the gentle throb of her pulse against her eardrums.

Then, deliberately, unhesitatingly, she drove the stake in her hand into the center of her chest.

She felt her body sink to its knees as, with the last vestige of fading strength, she pulled the stake free from her perforated heart.  She could almost feel her body turning off as the small muscle in the center of her chest attempted in vain to keep her alive.

She was only peripherally aware of her body dropping forward into the pool in front of her.  She could feel red blood, flowing warmly down the center of her chest.  From around her, she could feel, rather than see or hear, something screaming in pain.

The agony of the bodiless.

The radiance of the pool she had dropped into seemed to be darkening, but she was uncertain whether that was simply her eyes beginning to fail.

Her lungs deflated and would not expand again.  Not that they would accomplish anything if they did.

The last thing she saw as her eyesight darkened was a single form, recognizable as if she had seen him only yesterday.  He wore the same black leather jacket she'd seen him wear every day she'd known him.  He stood before her, gently smiling his approval at her, his short black hair hanging over his brown eyes.

"Daddy."  With what remained of her muscular control, a smile touched Dee's lips.

She did not speak again.

********

_Calgary__, __Alberta__._

To say that something was happening would have been an understatement.  Nobody knew exactly what it was, however.  It was as if a wave of energy rolled over the army of vampires, knocking them all to the ground as if a massive wind had slammed into them.

Kennedy whirled around to ask Willow what she'd done, but Willow looked as confused as she did.  Whatever was happening, Willow hadn't done it.

Something had changed in the Vampires as well.  Their attacks, which had only moments ago been well coordinated, well planned strikes were now little more than mindless flailing.

In short, they were acting like Vampires again.

Slowly, but unmistakably, the Slayers began to push the Vampires back.

********

_San Diego__, __California__._

April sat up, uncertain of what, exactly, had knocked her down.  She looked over at the pool Osiris had just occupied, but it was dark, empty.  The only light came from some flickering overhead lights, and they danced over a single human form, lying sprawled in the center of the now-empty pool, a stake held in its right hand, bright red blood dripping off its sharp point.

"Oh, God, no."  April felt tears coming to her eyes as she raced to her sister's side, cradling the Slayer's head in her arms.  "No, no, no, no, no."

Tears were flowing freely now as she rocked back and forth, Dee's serene face pressed against her chest, as if the rocking motion could somehow make the Slayer wake up.

"Come on, Dee.  Wake up."  Her voice shook in denial as she tried to breathe life back into the corpse with her words.

Then it hit her.

She was feeling sadness, remorse, grief.

She brought her hand up to her forehead, not feeling the ridges that had been there only moments before.  Her hand traveled down to the center of her chest, and there, against her fingertips lightly pressed against her chest, she could feel the steady rhythm of a beating heart.


	15. Epilogue

Disclaimer:  Nope, I don't own any of this.  Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy do.  Well, I did create April, Anne and Anders.  Dee is, strictly speaking, Joss Whedon's creation, since he did give her about ten seconds of screen time in "Chosen."  I'd like to think that I've made her into the woman she is now, though.

Epilogue:

"I guess nothing I say will make it hurt any less."  Oz' voice was infinitely gentle as April walked into his office.

"What happened to me?"

"We think that the vessel described in the ritual of the damned is actually a human soul; in this case, Dee's."  Oz told her.  "What better place to hold a soul than inside another?"

"But, why?"  April shook her head, not completely trusting herself not to break down in tears.

"Well, it actually makes a great deal of sense."  Oz said, "If you had a war to fight, what better way to ensure victory than to make sure that all your best warriors are almost invincible?"  He shook his head, "you find someone expendable, perform the ritual, and then you kill the vessel at the end of the battle to get your warriors back."

"It also made the perfect bait for Dee."  April nodded, her heart heavy.  "I imagine if she'd been turned, it would have had the same effect on me, anyway."

Oz nodded.

"How did Dee know?"  April asked.

Oz shook his head, "I'm not sure she did.  Willow said that the time between her completing the spell and Osiris' Vampires losing their direction was too short for her to have known where your soul was."

"So she did this for a bunch of strangers?"

"I don't know."  Oz told her, "we'll never know what she knew or how she knew it in those last moments."  He shrugged, "does it matter?"

April shook her head, "no."

"Are you okay?"

April shook her head again, "no.  But I will be."

********

It was in the top drawer of Dee's desk at home, for no reason that April could determine.

Dee had told her the story of how she became a slayer so many times, she could recite it by heart.

She wasn't certain why Dee had kept it.  Maybe some part of her knew what had happened that day, even if she wasn't consciously aware of it.  Maybe that part of her wanted to keep some kind of tangible reminder of the day a young, not so abnormal young girl had become a Slayer.

April gently traced her fingers over the thin seams of the baseball in her hand, and for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, allowed herself to smile.

_The end_

********

Author's note:

To answer the questions which I'm sure are arising: yes, Dee is really dead (and frankly, I'm rather pissed off at Dee for that one.  She goes and kills herself without even _asking_ me first!?  Talk about inconsiderate), and no, I have no intention of bringing her back á la Buffy Season 6.  I wanted to explore the journey from someone who was largely a loner/pragmatist to someone who would sacrifice herself for strangers.  I'd like to think I've done so with a reasonable level of success.  At this point, I have no plans to revisit this character (but don't necessarily rule out the possibility).  At the moment, I've got a new character I've been playing around with (her name's Maria, and she's the main character in a story I'm writing called "Redemption."  The first chapter has already been published).

Mind, if anybody else wants to take the time to play with the characters I've created in this story, you have my permission to do so, on a couple of conditions:

1) I'd really appreciate it if you told me first.  It's not like I'm going to say that you can't use 'em, but I'd like to know what happens with these characters I've put a lot of time and effort into.

2) I've worked long and hard to prevent Dee from slipping over to the Mary-sue end of the character spectrum.  I'd like to think that I've been relatively successful doing so.  If someone out there turns her into one, I'm afraid I'm going to have to hunt them down and shoot them.

3) I _was_ just kidding about #2, but bear in mind that I've grown somewhat fond of Dee over the last year, and it would really bother me to see someone brutalize her character.  So please, be gentle.

4) I'd really rather you didn't bring her back á la Buffy Season 6 (of course, there's not much I can do to prevent you from doing so), so bear in mind that there's a 13 year gap between her being chosen on the baseball field and her assuming the mantle of Slayer in San Diego.  You may not be able to put most of the benchmarks of the Whedonverse in such a story (since she had no clue what demons and Vampires were at the beginning of _Dee's Story_), but it could make for some interesting storytelling.

Apart from that, I can't think of anything.  Apart from the fact that I'd rather you didn't write Dee better than I do.  I mean, how much would that suck?  Here we have a character who's ostensibly mine (minus the ten seconds of screen time that Joss Whedon gave her in "Chosen"), and someone else writes her better than I do.  I jest, but that really would suck, now, wouldn't it?

At any rate, I hope you've enjoyed these stories, and I hope none of you are too upset at the ending.  Frankly, I have very little control over what Dee will do at any given point.  She took on a life of her own halfway through the first story and I became little more than an observer all the way through this one.


End file.
